What I'm Not

Chapter 19

I found Takara on the couch watching the news later that morning. They were talking about a man speeding because, as he put it, "my daughter and her friend tried to kill me!"

Of course no one believes him, right?

Thats when the door started knocking. I opened it to find two police officers standing there. They were both tall and built like football players.

"Good morning, ma'am," one officer said. "Are you Brooklyn Hudson?"

"Yes."

"I'm George Dunes from the Phoenix Police Department. Your dad was caught speeding this morning."

"Yeah, I saw it on the news."

"Were you trying to kill him?"

I shook my head. "No. But he was trying to kill my brother. We just fought in self defense."

"Can you show us where this took place?"

Takara and I lead the two officers upstairs and showed the axe and shattered door.

"About two and a half weeks ago, we adopted Takara so that he could stay here instead of living on the streets," I explained. "Dad immediately hated him and started beating him for punishments. When mom found out, she tried to stop him. It got worse."

"Can we see the wounds?"

Takara took off his shirt and the officers shook their heads.

"Dad locked him up for two weeks and forced us to never see each other with a shock collar on Takara activated by a bracelet my mom gave me. He came to see me yesterday at school and was taken to the nurses office where we deactivated the shock collar. Dad came home at 3:00 with a BB gun and planned to shoot Takara for punishment."

They nodded. "So what did you do?"

"I shot him until he left."

"That doesn't explain why he was speeding away..."

Takara tried to stand tall but he hunched back over. "He came back with the axe and tried to get in. Brooklyn shot him a few times but he jumped into the room. I held him down for a few seconds and then threw him out." As he finished his sentence, he moved his arms as if he had thrown a person. "I told him to leave so he sped away."

The officers nodded. "Anyone who can vouch for that?"

"I can." Mom appeared behind the police, surprising all of us. "I heard everything in my room."

"Then why didn't you help us," I asked.

My mom's eyes turned away from me. "I was too scared."

One of the officers wrote something on a tablet. "This will be enough evidence to damn him to prison for breaking and entering, endangering a minor, and attempted murder. Thanks for your time."

Takara and I walked them out and watched them drive down the road until they were out of sight.

"Get some sleep," I said to Takara.

"As long as Mike's in prison, I think I can do that." He turned and walked into the house with me. He laid down on the couch and slowly fell asleep. As soon as he was asleep, I squeezed in with him and fell asleep with his calm, scarred face in front of me.

We're just siblings, I told myself as I drifted off. We will never be together.

The last sentence brought a tear to my eye.

Never.