When I pushed open the front door— exhausted from another day of school, another day spent arguing with my shit-for-brains husband about who was going to pay the bills— the only thing I wanted was a little yellow pill, preferably washed down with a beer. I needed it. I needed it.
Finding Tim seated at my kitchen table put a bit of a damper on that plan— if looks could kill, his would've crucified me as I strode over to him. "The hell are you doin' here?" I demanded, throwing my backpack aside. "You climb in through the window or something?" I was a little worried about my husband finding him— he didn't much like having Tim around— though in retrospect, I really should've been more worried about my brother.
"I was at Ma's place just now," he started all-too-casually, "and the whole time I was there, I had to listen to her bitchin' about her pills goin' missing. Now, I didn't want to believe it, but I figured she ain't old enough for dementia and they can't have vanished into thin air— so I came here and had a look in your medicine cabinet." With a loud bang, he slammed the bottles down onto the table. "You wanna explain this one, Angela? And I'm waitin' for a pretty damn good explanation."
I could already tell that yelling at him for rooting through my cabinet was not going to bode well for me. "They're prescription," I countered instead. "From a doctor. What's the problem?"
"Funny, I didn't realize you'd changed your name to Elizabeth Shepard," he snapped. "Or Linda Jones. Or Mary Worth. You rob a pharmacy for these?"
"My husband's friends got me it," I said, making sure to emphasize that I was a full-grown woman with a husband, now— far too old to be told off by my brother like a child. "And it's really none of your damn business 'bout what I take—"
"It's none of my damn business?" he hissed, and I realized that that might've been the wrong thing to say, but I was just too irritated to care. "It's none of my damn business when you're popping fucking Valium like it's candy? You have any idea how dependent you can get on this shit?— no, you do have every idea, you grew up with Ma, too. What the hell would you do if you overdosed?" He was practically vibrating with fury at this point. "You've really crossed the line this time, little sister— I don't think you've ever done anything this stupid."
"Don't you dare compare me to Ma," I spat, trembling; Ma, who blew rent money on her latest hit and was usually too high to remember to feed us. "Don't you dare. I just need to get away, goddammit, and you don't have no fuckin' right to come into my house and give me shit for how I deal."
"You wanted to get caught," he said, now dangerously calm. "I know you did. You put all these damn bottles right at the front of the cabinet, where I could've found them lookin' for aspirin, and you stole them from Ma, of all people. Well, you don't have to worry no more, 'cause I can tell you're outta control, and I'm here now to give you the lickin' of a lifetime."
He wasn't serious. He couldn't be serious. (I turned off the part of my brain that was secretly happy about my big brother stepping in and fixing things. It was full of shit.) "I'm seventeen, Tim. Fucking seventeen. I'm too old for a spanking."
"You're right, you're too old for it, which is why this had better be the last one," he said firmly. "You've lost your goddamn head, and I'm screwin' it back on for you, whether you like it or not."
"You'd think after gettin' hitched—"
"Would you drop this 'married woman' bull?" Tim cut off. "You're a little girl playin' house, for Chrissakes— you're still livin' with this jackass, though you ain't pregnant no more. You don't even got one good justification for these pills, other than 'I wanted to' and 'I'm all grown up now'."
He reached over to tilt my chin up, and I glared at him, still unwilling to budge an inch. "I don't give a shit about how old you are, or where you live, or what kind of right you think you have to destroy yourself— you're gonna be in the exact same position, every time, no matter how long it takes for you to get the message. You could end up addicted or in the morgue because of this, and I'll be dead myself before I sit back and let that happen."
"You don't need to whale on me," I declared, feeling stupid and young, not half as confident as I'd been. "I ain't a kid, I get it already. I'll pitch them."
"You know, funnily enough, yellin' at you never seemed to do much— you just tuned me out. And when you were grounded, you just skipped on out the door as you pleased. But one thing— bein' over my knee— always did make a difference. Maybe you couldn't ignore it half as easily." He pierced me with a hard stare. "You obviously don't get it, else you wouldn't still be arguin' with me— which is fine, 'cause your ass is gonna find out just how serious this little stunt was in a minute."
It was somewhat comforting to me that no matter how hard I pushed, no matter how hard I tried to reach the point where Tim just gave up, I always failed— though it wasn't particularly comforting at that moment to know that he was beyond being swayed. "Fine," I said, too exhausted and irritable to keep whining. Maybe he was too damn sick of wrangling with me to dole out more than a few token swats. If my sister were a crazy fuckup who got high in the school bathroom just to make it through English lit, I'd be damn sick of her, too.
"Hey," he said, putting an arm around my shoulders, "I love you, all right? You've been scaring the hell outta me lately, even more with the pills than with your drinking— and if this is how I have to get through to you, I will, though I fuckin' hate it."
Well, he didn't have to goddamn do it if he hated it so much, did he? "You gonna use a belt, or no?" I asked, just to be sure, trying to make my voice sound cockier than I felt.
"You're still a scrawny little girl," he said scornfully. "I don't need a belt to make sure you remember this." He pulled out his chair and gestured towards his lap, and I threw myself onto it, cringing at how childish I felt— at how many memories I had of past punishments given by him, the view of the carpet, the awful anticipation before the first smack.
"I'll keep this short and sweet. No-more-Valium. It's all goin' in the trash, and I don't want to hear a single argument— you haven't been prescribed it, and you don't need to be takin' any. And the next time you feel this miserable, you talk to me, or anyone, instead of turnin' to the benzos. I'll say this as long as you need to hear it— your safety ain't negotiable, period."
Having said his piece, he brought his hand down hard enough to make me howl— or it would've made me howl, but I bit down on my lip and stubbornly refused to cry out, an unprecedented occurence when Tim licked me. I didn't want to have to give them up, it wasn't fair, and I wasn't a dumb kid to bawl over his knee— I wasn't.
Five or six swats later, I was gritting my teeth, tears glistening in the corners of my eyes as I kept trying to distract myself from the position I was in— what I'd done to earn it. And of course, Tim noticed. "Whenever you want to stop pretendin' you couldn't care less is fine by me," he said, landing a particularly hard blow near my thighs, '''cause I don't know who the hell you're trying to fool acting tough. Maybe you could think about me finding your body on the ground— that's what's goin' through my head."
It was so goddamn useless to try to keep my pride around Tim, who never stopped swinging until it was in pieces. He cracked his palm down over and over, and as the ache in my backside crested into a harsher burn, I found that I could no more restrain my sobs than I could restrain my heartbeat. I couldn't ignore this. I couldn't ignore this. I couldn't ignore the fact that my brother had to do this, fucking again, because I'd done something asinine, fucking again— something that could've killed me, though I'd never really considered that before today. "I'm sorry," I managed to say, breathing hard through tears and snot. "I didn't— I'm sorry."
"I'm glad you're sorry," he said, "but that just ain't good enough this time. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you, and you came so close to croakin' it's not even funny." The pain was building up awfully, and now I could barely distinguish where one swat started and the other ended— it was just one big hurt. "You could've had a heart attack, choked on your own vomit, actually lost your damn mind— never again. You're never doin' this again."
I was starting to feel like even the sweet numbness of the benzos wasn't worth this price. Not only was my ass on fire, not only was I bawling over Tim's lap the way I did when I was ten, but I could practically feel the terror and sheer disappointment in every strike. Finally, once I had stopped struggling and just hung limp, sobbing for all I was worth, it was done— though I didn't realize that for a few seconds until he ran his hand down my back. "I hope you learned something," he said, his voice far more gentle now. "I really, really hope you learned something, princess, 'cause I sure as hell don't want to teach a repeat."
Slowly, catching my breath, I stood up— and at the sight of his stricken face, I flung myself into his arms. I'd expected to still be angry that he'd punished me like a child, but all I wanted was reassurance that he wasn't mad anymore.
There were a million apologies spilling from my mouth, probably unintelligible, and he shushed all of them. I clambered onto his lap, not caring how babyish it was, and relished the feeling of his strong arms around me as I buried my face into his neck— this was the safest place in the world for me, always. "I didn't know it was so dangerous, I swear," I hiccupped. "I just wanted to get high, and drinking wasn't working, and—"
"I believe you," he murmured. "Tell me the truth— is it that bad here? Really that damn bad?"
I nodded miserably. "He don't hit me or nothin', he just ain't never home sober, he says he didn't ever love me—"
"Then he's a fuckin' idiot, Angel," he said, stroking my hair. "Listen... I think you oughta come and live with me for a while, at least 'til you graduate. Your husband ain't keepin' any kind of eye on you, and I doubt being around this mess has been good for your schoolwork. Obviously it hasn't been good for your health."
My schoolwork was a goddamn nightmare, and I wasn't looking forward to explaining that to him— but moving out of this shithole and into Tim's place sounded like a dream come true. "I'll go," I muttered, feeling sleepy and drained. "Don't wanna stay here no more."
"I figured you'd rather be with your favorite brother than that dipstick," he said, and I could hear the smirk in his voice. "You better get ready for an eight o'clock bedtime and vegetables at every meal, though, little sister. It's the straight and narrow for you from now on."
"The only vegetable you got over at your place is grass," I shot back without heat. Awfully cocky of him to think that he was still my favorite brother, even after tanning my hide— but I guess he knew that that'd always be his rank.
