The Words - An Autobiography

My Brother has a Girlfriend

"My brother has a girlfriend!"

I wouldn't have had the audacity to call her my girlfriend except for hearing my sister's rhythmic chant before we'd even had our first date. As if she was clairvoyant, my sister had intuited some minuscule change in my posture, the way I walked, my demeanor, perhaps my aura. It had become her mission to drill and prod me with remarks until she'd inevitably found a sensitive nerve. Then she was relentless.

"My brother has a girlfriend!"

"My brother has a girlfriend!"

"My brother has a girlfriend!"

It was a maddening song that I couldn't chase from my thoughts. Even when my sister was nowhere around for me to hear her sing, it rang through my brain. Then, each picking up the theme, the entire family began their individual barrages of questions, which I refused to acknowledge - until after our first date, and there began to be a glimmer of something to admit.

Yes, I met a girl.

At a dance.

At a club.

About a week ago.

I've seen her once since.

"He kissed her."

"He kissed her."

"My brother has a girlfriend, and he kissed her!"

Once that reality-altering event had forever colored my aura a different hue, my reddening face admitted the truth of my sister's remark to those less sensitive to changes in auras.

"None of your fucking business. You noisy little bitch!" I fired back preemptively during one of her contemplative, poignant pauses. It felt like she had some preternatural window into my private thoughts. Her scrutiny would inevitably hone in on those very intimate, personal fantasies dominating my thoughts and stirring my hormones when I was alone in my bed at night.

I found myself wrestling with a familiar dilemma when I woke at night with an all too familiar need. But now, I found myself torn between wanting to chase away the image of her face since I felt as though she was also observing me doing something that I was embarrassed for her to know that I regularly did at all, let alone while I thought of her. But as I neared the end, I invariably found my eyes locked onto hers, repeating her name as quietly as I could, not to wake everyone else in the house. Then I felt the immediate need to apologize, not only because of what I'd done as the image of her face filled my thoughts but knowing I'd likely feel the need to do it again before morning. I couldn't imagine the shame I'd feel the next time I did look into her eyes. But, at the same time, imagining anyone else's face would have felt like cheating.

The following week felt even longer than the previous, which had been seven consecutive days of torturous anticipation of discovering whether she would even be there as promised. I still expected to receive an email telling me it had been a mistake. She hadn't been herself. She'd suffered a psychotic break. But now, I had the reassurance of those emails we'd exchanged every night for the past week. Her last each evening ending with a single word.

Wow!

I spent the week in a fog at work, the only interruption being a sharp jab of pain. I stared in confusion at the damp spot on the forearm of my coveralls an inch above the rubber glove on my left hand until the increasing intensity of pain snapped me from my hypnotic state. Then, flinging aside my face shield, respirator, and gloves as I went, I grabbed the hose and sprayed the arm of my coveralls in a panic for a full minute before peeling them off and thoroughly rinsing my bare skin for a few minutes more.

My partner laughed. I'd been floating about in a world of my own for the past week, so he'd figured it had only been a matter of time. He asked who she was as he led me to the first aid station, opened and handed me a jar of salve, which I spread over the painful brownish stain on my forearm that had grown to the size of a quarter.