my brothers girlfriend

flirting

FIVE - LISA

I had gotten too cocky with Jennie. Too confident. I had crossed a line. It was easy to forget about Kai when thought about Jennie but it wasn't as easy when I saw him around the house. As much as I had excused it and told myself I didn't have bad intentions, flirting with Jennie was not okay.

However, the thoughts and feelings I was having weren't simply about to flush away. Quite the opposite. They were beginning to consume me. It was becoming easier and easier for me to fathom crossing that line as my thoughts and imagination ran away with itself. 

The right thing to do would be to interact with Jennie as little as possible and keep myself to myself. In my fantasies, I had managed to convince myself of the possibility of Jennie feeling a certain type of way about me. I had more than convinced myself. I had acted in a way that suggested her liking me back was a fact. As if last night we were on a date and me texting her first thing in the morning in the manner that I did was something acceptable. 

But when I hear Kai leaving, I remember the reality. And I hate it.

The reality is depressing because the reality is no matter how bad I want it to stop, I just seem to be liking Jennie more and more. The reality is that Jennie is Kai's girlfriend, not mine. The reality is Kai is my brother. 

And there is absolutely nothing I can do to change reality, so I spend all of Saturday curled up in bed. Moping in self-pity and willing reality to be different.

 In the late evening, I hear a car outside my window. I don't flinch at first. I know it's Kai coming home, but after a second of remembering that Jennie picked him up for their date, I'm quick to spring out of bed and see if he's bringing his company inside. 

I observe through a gap in the curtain, holding my breath as if they'd be able to hear me from here. After a second, the car turns off and both Jennie and Kai get out.  

Out of first instinct, I panic. I had been rotting in bed all day and did not look appealing. My second reaction is to re-evaluate myself; I should not be dressing to impress Jennie. I should just get back into bed and pretend I didn't hear them, but I don't want to seem rude for not going downstairs to greet Jennie. 

But it was unusual for me to be in on a Saturday night at this time, so perhaps my presence would go unnoticed either way. It was plausible that everyone would just assume I'm out partying on a Saturday night, unlike Kai, who was the golden child and, as far as we're aware, had never been shit-faced drunk in his life. 

Me, on the other hand, had busted through the doors in the early hours of the morning far too often than my Christian dad would have liked me to. Kai was also the favourite in that respect too; he never had any problem with sticking to our religious upbringing whilst I had more trouble doing so. 

Over the years, I'd had minor disputes with my dad over religion but nothing major. I kept the major details to myself. I knew I liked girls from a young age. I had never questioned it. I didn't understand it completely, but I just knew. 

It wasn't something I could choose or change, which really just undermined the entire foundation of religion for me. I wouldn't consider myself an atheist, but my biggest alleged sin was being gay, and I couldn't change that. So, fuck it. May as well enjoy a life of sin and all the fine women the world had to offer. 

Including Jennie, who was in a calibre of her own. She was truly the most beautiful woman I had ever met and I was becoming deeply infatuated. It didn't seem fair that she came into my life and yet was completely off limits.

And still, I could do whatever I wanted with her inside my head, so, what was the harm in looking?

Making myself semi-presentable in my bathroom doesn't take long. Really, it doesn't matter much how Jennie sees me. I was putting my sneaky advances behind me. I was just going to look and think from this moment on. It was easy to have pure intentions when she wasn't in front of me. It became especially harder when we were on our own, so perhaps what happened next was fate, or maybe a test. I'm no good at tests.