Chelsea and Jim are on opposite ends of the sofa with their stocking feet mixing together in the middle, but closer to her side because he’s got longer legs and she’s wearing a skirt. Floral-print pillows sail between them every few moments. Mostly from Jim’s side because Chelsea is lazily passing them over to him to lob back at her.
It’s getting late and we’ve been teasing and nagging each other for ages, treading lightheartedness. We’re all grinning placidly, appreciating the company.
I accuse them of flirting for a few reasons. Mostly because I’m feeling left out. Chelsea doesn’t even raise her voice in dissent, that’s how preposterous the idea is. Unruffled, still mostly concentrating on the pillow exchange, she informs me that to flirt with Jim would be incestuous. Because he’s like her brother.
And that gets a whole something else going.
“Except I don’t have a brother. So how can he be like my brother? The brother that I don’t have?” I try to shrug and shake my head to deflect and pretend I never said anything, but my shoulders are lost in the extra space inside my jacket and the arm of my chair is digging into my temple, preventing any appreciable gesture. I have my eyes closed now and I’m just thinking that I don’t know ‘how’ and she’s the one who said it, so.
Her not-brother asks what she’s talking about and Chelsea tries to rephrase the logic. “If you’re like my brother, but you’re not my brother . . . because I’m an only child . . . I don’t have a brother so how can I know what having a brother is like?” Jim ohhh-kays her and launches another pillow and they forget about it.
I think about it for a long time.
I sit there feeling cheated, somehow. It’s a little like remembering suddenly that there’s some place else I’m supposed to be. I remember the promise to myself that I would to stop needing to be everything to everyone. Needing and wanting are just two different promises.
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