Siblings

A Fresh Start

He had a girlfriend. A real, in person, serious girlfriend. That no one could know about. Well, he could always say she went to a different school, but it wasn't the same. 

He also wasn't as excited as he thought he would be if said girlfriend were just about anyone else. It felt weird, and not really the good kind of weird either. A deep-seated dread made his stomach feel like lead. What if they didn't work out? What if the "opposites attract" thing was only a novelty that would fade over time? What if he was just a play-thing for her until she found the actual guy she wanted? How could they function afterwards if they crashed and burned?

Hours passed while he was trapped in these thoughts and he realized that the sun had already set. Soon he would be eighteen. Yippee.

A knock at the door pulled his gaze from the ceiling. The door creaked open just enough for a head to poke through. 

"Hey, you busy?" a bright smile greeted. 

"No," he answered meekly. He hadn't moved from his sprawled out position on his bed since morning. She walked in and closed the door behind her. 

"Have you been sleeping all day?" she teased and sat down on the edge of the bed. 

"Haven't slept a wink actually," he admitted. 

"Oh. That sucks. Anyway, I managed to get my car-- oh, our car-- back before my dad noticed and Elle and I went to that spa over by that lake-," during her recap of the day she had climbed on top of him and rested her head on his chest. "And we got like 40% off since Elle's dad used to go to college with the owner." She looked up with sparkling blue eyes. "So, what did you do today?"

Spencer pressed his lips into a flat line, "You're looking at it." Her brow furrowed.

"You mean you've just been... laying here... the whole day?" 

"That is what I meant, yes."

"Well," she sat up, "we'll have to fix that." She hopped off the bed and extended her hand to him.

"I didn't really think it was a problem," he argued weakly.

"C'mon, I wanna show you something." He groaned but took her hand, letting her lead him out the door. They went into her room and she let go of his hand to dig out a box from one of her vanity draws. She giggled at his confusion and ran past him to the kitchen. When he caught up with her, she threw on a sweatshirt and opened the back door. "C'mon, Spence."

"What the hell are you going outside for?" he complained as he followed her anyway. "Oo wow it's like fifty degrees outside; can we go in now?"

"It's not my fault you didn't put on people clothes today."

"It is actually your fault." She opened the box and pulled out two wires covered in gray wax. "Sparklers? In October?" She set the box on the patio table and pulled out a lighter. 

"Okay, so I'm a day early. I wasn't about to let you spend your last day as a kid like a bum." It took a couple tries but she lit both sparklers.

"Maybe I like being a bum, you never know." She took out her phone and huddled into his side, holding her sparkler next to his. She took a picture with the woods beyond their backyard as the backdrop. "You gonna post that?"

"Nah, this one's just for us. I have always wanted to pick up scrapbooking. Maybe now I have the perfect excuse." He hummed in response and held her tighter. They stood like that until the wax was burnt out. "Happy birthday, Spence."