Chapter 4: Women…

"So…do you need a ride back to the Stevenson's place, or do you just wanna crash here tonight?"

Claire hadn't said a word since we left McCarthy's. Her jaw was clenched shut, and she kept her eyes focused dead ahead. She walked stiffly, angrily, like she was trying to punish the very ground beneath her with the ferocious stomps of her sneakered feet.

Her tainted expression didn't change once. I racked my brain, trying to figure out why she was acting the way she was. Did I say something? No, she was fine throughout dinner, and I didn't see any of her usual signs that she was mad. My mind quickly skimmed through the events of the night. She fell asleep and forgot to put out her cigarette, so it burned a hole in her favorite pair of jeans. Wait…are those even her favorite pair? No…no, it doesn't matter. That can't be it. Is she just mad that I woke her up? Probably not. No, definitely not.

Then I remembered something else. When McCarthy came back to our table for the third time, Claire had been seemingly asleep. She was snoring slightly. Claire's snoring was something I'd teased her about for years, until one day she actually got angry, really angry, and demanded I never bring it up again. It was then that I had realized that it was one of her greatest insecurities, something that she read in her own mind as a blemish against her femininity. McCarthy and I had been laughing and joking and poking fun at her, and at one point, I couldn't be sure, but I could've sworn I saw her eyelid flicker or open just slightly. That would mean…

She'd heard us.

I gulped as silently as I could manage. She lead the way confidently, yet angrily. She knocked open the front doors to my apartment building and stormed over to the elevator. She thrust a slender index finger at the "up" button, but she may as well have hit the damn thing with a hammer. She folded her arms and leered at the numbers above the doors, tapping her foot. I glanced back at Mike, the concierge, who flattened his mouth and glanced at my sister, as if to ask what was the matter. I shrugged.

I decided to get another look at her sour face. I edged forward ever so slowly, and just caught the edge of a shiny buildup of tears in her left eye before she abruptly turned away, blatantly aware that I was looking at her.

Had our jokes really pissed her off this much?

The elevator door opened and she stepped in. I followed closely. As I stepped through the doorway, I tried to get her to look at me by looking directly at her. She quickly glanced away, toward the corner of the elevator. I pressed the button leading up to my floor. Apparently she intended to spend the night. I expected her to go first, so I stayed where I was. However, Claire stayed exactly where she was. She finally looked at me, motioning with her hands for me to go first. I did so without a word. What the hell is wrong with her?

I strode down the hallway to my apartment, hearing Claire's soft footsteps behind me. I turned the key and pushed the heavy oak door open, taking in the familiar scent of my apartment. Claire briskly pushed past me and unzipped her jacket, angrily pulling it off and whipping it at one of my couches.

She stepped over to the picture window and stopped, arms folded, staring out into the dark city, illuminated by thousands of tiny pinpoints of light. I briefly contemplated the irony that, because of all those millions of tiny lights on the ground, it was impossible to see any stars over the city.

After awhile I heard a wheezing sound come from her. Slowly, softly at first, then heavier. She shuddered and covered her face with her small palm, then broke out into full, choking sobs.

I took my time moving to her, trying not to seem frantic or threatening in any way. She buried her face in both of her hands. I wrapped my muscular bulk around her. She felt tiny in my arms, though still much bigger than when she was thirteen.

She surprised me by pushing me away and walking toward the couch, where she stood, still sobbing, her back to me. She was holding her arms and shuddering as if she were cold. I stared at her. Something was seriously wrong. Why is she doing this? I thought to myself. What did I do? What is she not telling me?

All at once, it hit me.

"You know, it's been four years to the day since Mom and Dad died."

She continued to sob. Tremors ran up and down her body as her emotions took physical form. It seemed to weaken her. She sank to her knees and sobbed louder than ever.

Her anguished sobs drowned out every other ambient sound in my apartment. And I stood there, watching my baby sister cry on the floor of my apartment, feeling my heart break, feeling powerless to help her. After awhile I approached her again. Silently, I picked her up by her shoulders, walked her over to the couch, and sat her down. She settled herself and sat for awhile, clutching a pillow and staring at the floor, gasping and sniffling.

After awhile, she managed to speak.

"You…hic…know…sniff…I really…hated you…for awhile…after you…hic… left…"

She looked up at me, waiting for a response.

I remained silent.

"We lost…hic…both our parents…hic…and still…we managed to…resume somewhat normal lives…" she locked eyes with me, shooting an icy glare my way, "…and then you…sniff…bailed on me."

I remained silent.

She sat up and inhaled deeply. "That's how I felt for a long time," she continued, her condition quickly improving, "a really long time. I honestly thought…sniff…for awhile that you just got tired of taking care of me, so you ran away." She paused. "I thought you just didn't care."

"Claire, it wasn't like that at all," I protested.

She looked at me hard and then turned away. "I know." She wiped her eyes. "I knew deep down, but I just couldn't convince myself." She curled her legs up and wrapped her arms around her knees. "You just…" she trailed off.

I leaned forward. "I just…?"

She closed her eyes and rested her cheek against her crunched legs and as she did so, fresh tears began to flow, though this time, bereft the violent sobs.

"You just don't know how hard it was for me, Chris. You'll never know. You'll never know how I felt every time I saw my friends get picked up by their moms and dads after school, off to happy homes, living normal, happy lives. You'll never know how hard it was for me to adjust to them being gone, and to have you take both their places. And the guilt! I had to live with guilt on top of everything, Chris!"

"Why guilt?" I asked her.

"Because here was my brother, my best friend, trying so fucking hard to fill their places and still be the same big brother I'd grown up with, the same guy I'd looked up to since I was a toddler, a guy who was sacrificing all his time and money to make me feel like nothing bad had ever happened to me…" she stopped, then looked at me. "To either of us. And here I was, this ungrateful little brat, thinking and acting like it just wasn't good enough. Chris, I…I felt like I was insulting you by wanting Mom and Dad back. And all of this just weighed me down every single day of my life, and I tried to deal with it, but it was just too much."

I was shocked and heartbroken by everything she was telling me, but I couldn't blame her. It had been hard for me, too. And she had felt guilty about wishing Mom and Dad were still around?

"Those times you sent me off on vacation to Grandma and Grandpa's? I missed you so much, Chris. I mean, I love our grandparents, or, loved them anyway…but I missed you. I missed being home. I just missed feeling normal and safe." She sighed deeply. "I still do."

"Claire, I'm sorry, I really am," I said. "I tried my best. I just wanted you to grow up with some stability, and I'll admit, I wasn't always there for you…"

"Oh, shut up, Chris," she said flatly. "You did a great job. A terrific job. I couldn't have expected any more from you. But when they died, you were nineteen. You were already grown up and out of the house. I was thirteen, for God's sake! No matter how well you did, it just wasn't the same. It wasn't the same as having a mom or a dad." She stretched her legs and stared at the ceiling. "And then we come back to the guilt. But see, I was actually warming up to the…adjustments we had to make in our lives. I still missed them every second I was awake, but I was finally getting used to it. That was when you decided to split and leave me with the Stevensons."

I looked at the ground.

"And it wasn't even a gradual change either. You left…really abruptly, Chris. I mean, one minute you're home and I'm home and everything's running smooth, you know, business as usual, then suddenly you're like, 'Hey! Guess what, Claire? I'm gonna sign up for the Air Force and go overseas and probably get killed while you go off to live with an old couple you barely know!'"

She wasn't looking at me. She paused for a few brief moments to look at the wall, sigh, and shake her head.

"And that was when I needed you more than ever, Chris. I was finishing Middle school, which was no picnic to begin with, and I was going into High School. And I got sick of all the pressure I felt building up from trying to deal with everything. I was finally going to tell you everything. I was gonna come to you, probably break down, and just let everything out. God, I'd been trying so hard to be strong about everything for so long and I just couldn't take it any more. And then, just in the midst of all this, you came to me and told me you were leaving, and before I could muster up the courage to talk to you, you left."

It was at this point that I found myself on the verge of tears. I took a few moments to force down the lump in my throat before I responded.

"Claire, if I had known you needed me that much, I never would have left," I said.

She smiled and nodded. "I wanted to think so. And a part of me still did. But I just…hated you…so much, and I still don't completely understand why."

She looked up at me, her eyes incongruously puffy and red while simultaneously a sharp, piercing blue. She smiled and even laughed a little.

"You're my brother, and I love you. And no matter how crazy I get, the best part of me always will." The look on her face told me she was completely sincere. She didn't so much as blink once.

"None the less," she said, pulling her gaze away from me, "my emotions ran away with me, and for a couple years I just felt this burning hatred for you. Well, actually I don't know if it was necessarily hatred, but I do know that I was insanely pissed off at you. I think what cinched it was when you sold the house. That was the last piece of my childhood, my old, normal life I had left. Seeing it sold off to some random family that could never really appreciate it as much as I did just made me crazy."

"Claire, I can't tell you how sorry I am," I said to her pleadingly.

She held her hand in front of my face. "Let me finish," she said.

"See, despite everything, I would still worry about you subconsciously every day. And when I got those letters from you I had really mixed feelings. See, on one hand, I was happy to hear from you, and glad to know that you were safe. On the other hand, your letters were always so upbeat and cheery. It almost sounded like you were having the time of your life while I was rotting away in Chicago, just wishing to God you'd come home, dreading the day I'd get a phone call and some army guy would tell me you'd been…you know…"

I saw another buildup of tears in her already saturated eyes, but this time she didn't turn or try to hide them.

"If you hadn't made it home, I'd have been completely alone. No family whatsoever. And that was like gasoline on the fire, Chris. It just seemed so reckless and inconsiderate of you, and it pissed me off."

She stopped briefly and took a deep breath. Her face was flushed. She sighed heavily and continued.

"That's why I was surprised that when they called me to tell me you'd be coming home for good, I got really excited. After those two years of hating you and hating the world, I realized that deep down I still loved you, at least enough to forgive you. I thought back and realized you'd really always been there for me. Even when you went overseas, I'd still get letters from you every single week. Sometimes twice a week. And you'd always ask me how I was doing, if I needed anything, and how you couldn't wait to go on leave so you could visit me. And you've always been really supportive of me. You taught me everything I know: how to act, how to treat others, how to think for myself and not just follow the crowd. You taught me how to survive in the real world. You beat up bullies for me."

I smiled when she said that, the episode with Johnny Brooks running through my head once more.

"Plus, you assumed guardianship of me when you were just nineteen years old." She stopped and looked at me intensely. A shiny layer of tears coated her warm, sharp eyes and when that small light behind her eyes returned, that same bluish glow I had seen in the restaurant, her tears magnified it, making it almost seem like it lit up the room. Then, in a soft voice, she said, "Everything I still have, I have because of you, Chris."

I smiled at her, feeling a mixture of pride and gratitude, tinged with a deep streak of sadness and regret. I opened my arms to her, and she climbed across the couch and into my grasp. She curled up in my arms, sniffling, resting her head on my chest.

After a few moments of contented silence, she said plainly, in almost a whisper, "That's why I don't deserve your sympathy."

I looked down at her, confused. "How's that?"

She buried her head deeper in my chest. "Because after all you'd done for me, I still underestimated the hell out of you. I had wrongfully accused you of abandoning me, and after a year or two of sorting things out I managed to satisfy myself with the conclusion that I was reading way too much into what you did. You weren't betraying me," she said as though the word revolted her, "you were just doing what you wanted to do. You were living your own life, and I selfishly expected you to hold back for my sake. But I overlooked something big, and I didn't realize it until a few hours ago, when you told me and Chuck all about your career as a pilot. I realized that, you weren't doing any of it because you enjoyed it. You weren't doing it to fulfill some long-lost adolescent daydream of being a fighter pilot. You were doing it because you felt the same as me: you wanted to get over missing Mom and Dad. You were trying to move on with your life, and for you that meant doing something you'd always wanted to do." She looked up at me with the timidity of some small, helpless animal. "Am I right?"

"Close," I said after giving myself a few seconds to think. "But I didn't join the Air Force to forget about them. Just the opposite. I joined the Air Force because I wanted to honor their memory. Understand Claire, you give me way too much credit," I laughed weakly. "I kept telling Mom and Dad that I was going to join up straight out of High School, and they were behind me one hundred percent. The whole family was. Even you. But I didn't do it. I spent a year after High School dicking around, wasting my time at a dead-end job because I was scared. I was scared of joining up and I was scared of leaving my old life and Mom and Dad and you behind. I was scared of my life changing. In the back of my head, there was this voice, and it kept telling me that I didn't really have to do anything. I could keep playing it safe and eventually I'd get around to it, just not right then. And then one night I get a call from some guy who tells me my parents are dead."

I had to stop there. All the old memories, the ones that weren't already permanently in my head came rushing back all at once. I had to take a few seconds to gather myself before I could continue.

"And I get this call, and I realize that I'm too late. I waited too long. And now Mom and Dad will never get to see me do anything with my life. I'll never be able to show them how their efforts on me weren't wasted. All I can really do, Claire, is try to honor their memory."

Silence. Silence from both of us. I guess we were both thinking deeply in those minutes that passed in silence…about exactly the same things. We're close, her and I. Sometimes it's scary how close. And I think we had one of those moments there, in my darkened living room, where the strength of our connection showed.

Claire started laughing. Giggling at first, just short, quiet, bubbly giggles. Then they grew. They grew into full-blown laughter, and I joined in. I had no idea why. But it felt as if we had both been let in on some elaborate practical joke, and we both understood it at exactly the same time.

"Oh my god," she eventually choked out. "Our lives fucking suck!"

That only multiplied our laughter. We laughed out all our energy, all our pain and sadness, but not completely. It was like emptying a trashcan. Eventually, I knew (and I think she did too) it would build up again, but for now we were free from it. It felt good.

The last of our energy left us and gradually, our laughter died down. I was amazed how different I felt right away. My living room seemed new and alien to me, the familiar scents and noises of the one-bedroom apartment fresh yet familiar. Even Claire looked different. She seemed to be smiling, though not quite visibly. Smiling with her eyes. She had this glowing, invisible aura around her, a vibe that told me she was totally centered and at peace with everything.

Claire ran her hand through her hair and lay back on the couch. I tussled her hair, revitalizing her laughter and mine.

"You know, you can't make it any more messy than it already is," she said.

"Is that a challenge?" I said, reaching for her frizzy scalp once more.

"Don't!" she yelped, laughing as she flailed her hands against mine.

"Ow!" I said, retracting my hands. "You cut me."

"Girls have sharp nails," she said. "Let that be a lesson to you."

There were two scratches on the top of my left hand. One of them actually drew blood.

Claire noticed this as well. "Oh, shit," she said, "I really did cut you!"

"Yeah," I said, rubbing the wound. "I suppose this makes us even."

That quickly soured her expression. "Chris, come on," she said. "I'm really sorry. I feel really bad about this whole thing. Shit, I always have. I used to get nightmares where I'd see you die, and the last thing I'd said to you was 'burn in hell' or something really nasty like that. Then I'd always wake up feeling like complete shit. Sweating, shaking…you know. The Stevensons always thought it was just some hormonal whatchyacallit."

"So you never told them anything?"

"Chris, I just barely got up the courage to tell you all this. You really think I was gonna tell the Stevensons anything?"

Her following sigh turned into a whimper. I offered another hug, which she took.

"I forgive you," I said quietly.

"Thanks," she whispered.

"Now then," I said, pushing her away, "you never answered my question. You gonna crash here tonight or do you want me to take you back home?"

"Chris, as far as I'm concerned, the only real home I have is your shitty apartment," she said with an impish smile. As casually as she said it, I knew she was completely serious.

"Then you get the couch bed," I said.

"Cool," she said. "That means I get the TV."

"Don't stay up too late, though," I said with a mock-parental tone.

"No promises," she replied, tearing the cushions off of the couch and flinging them across the room.

I started heading for my room, but before I had gotten far, Claire stopped me.

"Oh wait, hold on a second," she said suddenly, fishing her jacket out of the pile of cushions and reaching into one of the pockets. She pulled out something small and square, like a box of playing cards. She strode over to me evenly and extended it to me. "Want 'em?"

It was a carton of cigarettes. I took them without a word as I stared into her eyes, waiting for an explanation.

"I don't think I'll need these, anymore," she shrugged. "I never really smoked that much to begin with. Just every once in awhile or on really special occasions."

"You made it sound like you were doing a pack a day in your letters," I said.

She shrugged again. "I lied."

"Jesus, you didn't even get a good brand," I said, frowning at the carton.

"It didn't matter," she said.

I looked up at her to ask for an explanation, but silenced myself. Her eyes confirmed what I had suspected. She hadn't started smoking for the sake of smoking. We locked eyes for about a minute, neither one of us blinking, saying things without speaking.

"Well, g'night," I said finally, turning and starting for my room.

Just as I entered the hallway, I heard her soft voice behind me. "'Night, Chris."

I almost turned around and said something, but I didn't really know what to say. I just shrugged and continued down the short hallway to my bedroom. I closed the door and slumped onto my bed.

Back in the living room, I heard Claire shuffling around with my incredibly elegant storage solution for my VHS collection: a worn cardboard box, the same one I'd used to move them in with. After a couple minutes I heard the muffled sounds of plastic clattering against plastic and shortly after that, the springs on my couch-bed as the movie began to play. I heard her curse and get up, grumbling something about having no patience for previews. It took her a couple minutes before I finally heard her say, "There's the remote!"

I lay awake for a little while, staring at the ceiling and listening to the movie. I began processing everything Claire had told me. I felt terrible, having left her alone when she had felt so vulnerable. Granted, I had no idea how much emotional weight she'd been carrying. There was no way I could've known. She had been suffering at home while I was suffering overseas. She had needed me and I wasn't there for her. She had a damn good reason to be mad, and I didn't blame her at all.

Still, the…intensity of it all surprised me. She had always sounded cheerful in her letters. Why had she kept this from me for so long?

Because she was scared, I heard my internal voice say. Just like you procrastinated for a year after you graduated, she was waiting for the right time to tell you, and it just never came. Poor girl. She's been through so much already, so much…

Yet even as these thoughts ran through my head, I found myself once again amazed by her strength. She hadn't really hated me. She felt like she did, but she didn't. What I had seen that night was pure emotion made into words. She wasn't exaggerating, however; I could tell that it really had been as tough on her as she'd made it out to be, if not worse. Yet despite everything, she'd held on, she hadn't given up, and she'd had the strength to forgive me and even take care of me the night before, when I had passed out in a drunken daze on the floor of my apartment.

"Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party time! Excellent!"

The combined voices of Mike Meyers and Dana Carvey and an electric guitar riff reached my ears, muffled through the walls. Wayne's World. One of our mutual favorite movies. It had come out the same year our parents died, but a few months before. We both instantly declared it a classic, claiming in our youthful, sarcastic exuberance that it trumped every other movie ever made.

I smiled as I folded my hands behind my head and listened to the movie. I wanted to watch it with her, but I knew that going back to the living room would just encourage her to stay up for the whole thing.

"Garth! You're in a forest with Heather Locklear."

"With Heather?"

"And you're very warm. You're very…warm…"

I chuckled and likewise heard Claire giggle at the movie. It was exactly what we both needed…some kind of reminder of how our lives used to be. The happy, goofy times that we took for granted because the worst things we had known about life were homework and the stomach flu.

"I think we'll go with a little 'Bohemian Rhapsody', gentlemen!"

"Good call!"

Ah, Queen. Yet another specific of life's pleasures that Claire and I shared. I had listened to them prominently during my high school years, when I was generally listening to bands like Motley Crue and Led Zeppelin. The fact that I picked up on this band that was, in every sense of the phrase, "un-metal", confounded my sister into taking a listen for herself. She was hooked instantly.

"…I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me…He's just a poor boy, from a poor family…"

Claire had begun softly singing along with the actors on the screen. She clearly wasn't aware that voices carry far when you live in an apartment mostly fitted with hardwood floors. None the less, I enjoyed hearing her sing, and I enjoyed the music. It seemed like she turned the volume up at one point, her voice growing louder and louder as she lost herself to the music. I laughed audibly as I imagined what she probably looked like now, standing in front of the TV, banging her head and air-drumming, her ponytail flopping up and down, her eyes closed and her face scrunched up, all the while mouthing the words:

"So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye…so you think you can love me and leave me to dieee…ohhhhh baby…can't do this to me baby…just gotta get out…just gotta get right out of here…"

We were enjoying the same movie, though she didn't know it, because I was in another room. We felt the same way, though we were physically separate from each other. This time, though, our mutual feelings were of happiness.

Maybe this is a sign, I thought to myself. We're together again, we've finally gotten the worst of it sorted out. Maybe things will only get better from here.

As I drifted off to sleep, I heard the soft, melodic voice of Freddy Mercury, twinged with that of my sister as the final lyrics of the song were sung.

"Nothing really matters…"

My eyes closed and I felt myself fall into the most peaceful sleep I'd known in years.

"Nothing really matters…to meeeeee…"

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

I can honestly say that this was the hardest chapter to write yet. I'd literally get these three-day-long periods of EPIC writers block, only to come back and write about three sentences, then just avoid my computer for another week. Thank god for bursts of inspiration!

From here on out, it's going to focus more on Chris' early career as a S.T.A.R.S. operative than on the demise of his parents and his relationship with Claire. She'll still be a big part of it, but as far as the subject matter is concerned, it'll start getting more action-y.

Also, thanks to mein reviewers:

Carmel Bigface

Divine Arion

yamiishot