The next time I ran into Ellie turned out to be not so far away. She was waiting for me on the porch at six o'clock when I got off work. She was pacing back and forth, tugging on her sleeves, and she watched me ride up like I was the reaper. It was hard not to notice her tired eyes, carefully covered with powdery make-up and dark eye shadow. I wondered if she'd slept at all, or if she'd spent the entire night cruising with Nameless Blonde Yuppie.

"Don't tell Sean," she blurted out before I'd even gotten off my bike. I watched her with cocked eyebrows as I took my time walking up the steps. I didn't say anything. The whole situation was too funny. She looked at me so pleadingly, so desperately. This sixteen year old girl was on my steps, before the sun had even come up, begging forgiveness. As if my judgement on the situation meant anything at all.

She swallowed hard. "Please don't tell Sean."

I sighed and leaned against the door. "So how long has this been going on?" I asked with genuine interest. I really wondered how long she'd been lying. She was absolutely convincing.

She sighed and looked at me, straight in the eye, with boldness I rarely saw in her. There really was a whole other person hiding behind that quiet personality of hers. "Look, are you going to tell him or not?"

I tried not to grin. It was funny. Sad for Sean, but oddly satisfying. It was nice to watch someone else get screwed over for a change. "Look, you're not my responsibility. You may practically live at my house, but you're still not my responsibility. I don't really give a shit what you do." I paused for a moment to yawn and scratch the back of my head. "But listen, Sean hasn't had things easy, you know? He's real big on you. You're kind of, holding everything together for him right now. Don't lead him on. Do what you want, just... don't hurt the kid."

I mean, come on now. I didn't want to get involved in this teenage romance drama, but at the same time, I couldn't just stand by and let my brother get shit on. I gave her a warning glance, though what I was warning her of I didn't really know. I unlocked the front door and left her there. I didn't even wait around to see what her response would be. I think I was protecting myself from the truth. If she really was going to hurt my brother, I didn't want to see it in her face. I just didn't want to know about it. Ignorance would make me immune to any blame.

Later that day, a package came from Alberta. It was a bunch of the stuff I'd left behind. Apparently Wendy found it in her heart to forgive me to some extent. At least she sent my Bowie shirt; which was a sign that she didn't completely hate me. These packages continued to come for the next few days. She even sent back my mattress, which I was glad to have back; the piece of crap Clint let me have just didn't have the same feel. The last package she sent me was light and thin, and inside was the divorce papers.

I collapsed into the decaying puke-green arm chair with a sigh as I looked them over. The details had all been worked out already, both of us in agreeance, but seeing it there in front of me was still depressing. One of my biggest fuck-ups ever, laid out nice and neat, black and white, in perfect legal terms.

"What did she send you this time?" Sean asked from his lounging position on the couch. I tore my eyes away from the papers for a moment to look at him. He had the day off from work, so it was one of those rare times where we were actually home at the same time. Why, I wondered, did my weakest moment just happen to be during one of the only times my little brother was home? God likes to fuck with me.

"Sean, did I ever tell you that women are the source of all evil?" I asked him, bringing my eyes back to the divorce papers.

He shrugged. "No, I must have missed that one."

I nodded. "Yeah, well. They are. Just a heads up." I leaned back in my seat. It's funny how hard it was to accept that things were really over with Wendy. When she threw me out, I was more than ready to get away from her. But like, by signing this paper I was admitting to my failure. That was never easy. "Get me a pen, Sean."

Sean snorted and tossed another M&M into his mouth, with no indication whatsoever that he was about to move. "Get it yourself."

"Come on, I'm serious. Just get up and get me a pen."

"Yeah, no, not gonna happen."

"Jesus," I muttered. I tossed the papers onto the coffee table and meandered into the kitchen to get the pen myself. When I returned, Sean had picked up the papers and was looking them over.

He looked up when he noticed me standing there waiting. "So are you like, upset?" he asked, handing them back to me.

I rolled my eyes as I returned to the armchair. "Sean, my marriage lasted less than a year. Yeah, I'm just a tad bitter."

Sean's eyes fell slightly. It was strange. It was the first time since I'd come home that he looked at me with anything other than absolute apathy. For a moment he actually seemed to give a shit about my existence. "Do you still love her?"

Those were his words, but the tone of his voice seemed like it was really asking, "Did you ever love her?" As if the idea of me loving someone was too bizarre for him to comprehend.

I laughed. "Love is a funny thing, kiddo." I signed the first line. There it was. Official. Tracker Cameron is a screw-up. "I mean, for example, I love Mom and Dad. But that doesn't mean I'm capable of being around them for more than an hour or so at a time. Sometimes you love someone so much you can't even stand to be around them." I signed the next two slots where my signature was required. "So you see, I love Wendy like crazy. I just don't want to ever look at her or speak to her again."

Sean shook his head and laughed lightly as he scarfed down more M&M's.

I sighed as I finished with the papers and then laid them back down on the coffee table. "I'm glad this is so amusing for you, Sean. Really. Your entertainment is my number one priority." His smugness about the whole situation was more than annoying. I would have liked to bring up the fact that his precious girlfriend was in fact a filthy lying slut, but no, I couldn't do that. This was another one of those times when I had to be the mature one and hold my tongue.

We watched TV together in silence until Ellie waltzed through the door. She had let herself in, of course. Something happened when she walked through the door, something that didn't usually happen when she was around. I turned my head to look. She fought not to make eye contact with me.

That was the difference. I was looking. I never looked before. I never used to give a shit when she walked into the room. But after the night I'd seen her in the convenient store, it was like Ellie suddenly existed. I noticed her for a change. She would walk into a room and I couldn't help but acknowledge it. I would run into her briefly and in those few seconds, in whatever few meaningless words we exchanged, I would try and see through her. I didn't really want to notice her, but I did. There was something more to her.

She and Sean left quickly, in a hurry to go out and do whatever those carefree teenagers did, and soon I was sitting all alone. The dull roar of a game show on the TV, the noisy ceiling fan, and the divorce papers on the coffee table were my only company as the sun slowly set outside the window, leaving me in darkness.

I probably would have stayed like that the entire evening, staring at the TV without really watching it as I contemplated my misery, if Clint hadn't called and insisted that we hang out together on our night off. I agreed half-heartedly, and half an hour later he arrived with pizza, beer, and Phil Santos, his roommate and my good friend from high school. He claimed to have the perfect remedy to cheer me up. Because obviously, when you realize what a failure of an adult you are, the thing to do is get drunk off your ass with guys you've known since puberty. I felt like such shit I almost didn't even have the energy to drink. But of course, I did, and two hours, one pepperoni pizza, and a twelve pack later, I was in such a good mood that I somehow thought it would be a great idea to give Wendy a call and let her know just how fabulous I was doing without her.

Clint and Phil were sprawled on the couch, doubled-over with laughter, as I dialed the number and tried not to crack up myself. She answered on the third ring, and when I heard her voice, softly creeping through the receiver with a touch of static, I suddenly realized what a stupid idea this was. And instead of finding it funny, I found it sad. Miserably, overwhelmingly sad. "Weeenndy?" I murmured, barely able to pronounce the word.

There was a pause. "Tracker? Is that you?" I nodded, without realizing she couldn't see me through the phone. I wondered what she was doing, what she was wearing. If there was anyone else there with her. "Hello?"

"H-h-hey," I managed to slur out. "How are you? I wuz thinking aboutchu."

She let out an angry groan, just the way she used to do when we were arguing and I said something she didn't like. "Jesus Christ, Tracker. Are you drunk?"

"No." Obviously an enormous lie. "Listen I was just thinking about you. Can't I call you just to say how you're doing? Whatchu doing?" It was driving me crazy how the words I wanted to say were so clear in my head, but whenever I tried to say them out loud nothing came out but an incoherent drunken babble.

Her voice was tired and empty. Like she was too sick of me to even feel. "Look, Tracker, don't call here any more. Just sign the papers and send them back to me." Her warm voice was then gone, and the iciness of the dial tone was all that remained.

Clint and Phil were turning purple at this point, probably not even really understanding why they found it funny. "Smoooooth," said Phil, waving his arms around as he spoke. Golden bubbling beer sloshed out of the can in his hand and spilled onto my couch. "Very smooth."

"Dude you are SUCH a fucking faggot, man. I love you. You're retarded!" Clint said far too loudly for normal speech. He continued to crack up until he rolled off of the couch, and even when he hit the floor with a loud thud, he kept howling loudly into the carpet.

I dropped into the armchair in defeat. My mood had faded from mildly amused to somewhat maudlin. I had remembered why I'd gotten drunk in the first place, and it was depressing. I rested my forehead on my hand and gently rubbed my temple.

"Well, well, lookee here!" said Clint, lifting himself off of the floor. He reached under the couch and pulled out a pair of plain but scantily-cut black women's panties. He twirled them around on his finger and laughed. "So just who do these belong to, Tracker?"

I gazed with my bloodshot eyes at the silky black material. There was no way they belonged to any girl of mine, since I hadn't been with anyone since Wendy, and I knew for sure they weren't hers. I shrugged. "Must belong to Sean's girlfriend," I said. It was a profound realization. Ellie's black underwear, there in my house.

An explosion of laughter emitted from Clint's mouth and he buried his face in the panties to stifle it. "Are you SERIOUS? Slutty McRedhead? The one we saw in the store?" I shrugged again, trying to appear indifferent. Clint cackled on. "Oh, MAN. I can't believe YOUR little brother is hitting that shit. I thought he was still like, twelve. That's crazy! They grow up so fast..." He continued to occupy himself with the novelty of a teenage girl's underwear, until Phil snatched it away from him and the two of them started wrestling drunkenly for ownership of the panties.

"Yeah, but apparently we don't..." I mumbled. I felt a bizarre feeling that was somewhere in between amused and disturbed to think of Sean having sex. On my couch, no less. With... her. I reached over to the coffee table and grabbed myself another beer. The evening went on like that, me drinking beer after beer as Clint and Phil acted like idiots, until eventually I lost count of cans and passed out.

The morning, or actually the late afternoon, brought with it the worst hangover I'd had since high school. There was a dull ringing in my ears and a hurt in the back of my head that felt like I was being slammed with a sledgehammer over and over again. I opened my eyes slowly. The harsh flourescent lights stung and made my head twinge even more. Someone was playing Red Hot Chili Peppers at a low volume on the stereo. I sleepily gazed around and saw Ellie squatting on the living room floor, busily picking up empty beer cans as if this was a normal daily activity. She looked like a little girl who was used to cleaning up a drunkard's mess. I wondered if she even realized what she was doing, or if it had just become a habit for her.

"Where's Sean?" I mumbled. My voice was scratchy and worn.

Ellie's breath caught slightly when she realized I was awake. "He's still asleep," she said quietly.

"Where's Phil and Clint?"

"They left after Sean and I got home. Sean kind of kicked them out. He was... really upset when he saw you passed out." She held her breath, waiting for me to speak.

I laughed. "Yeah, well, Sean's a baby." I climbed out of the chair and rubbed my eyes as I walked to the bathroom. There were a few moments of pause after I'd gone in before I heard Ellie's voice right by the door.

"I think you should talk to him," she said through the thin wooden door. "He's feeling really angry and afraid right now. He needs you to set an example."

I was still only half-awake, and trying to register all this was not helping my headache at all. For a second there I could have sworn I was hearing my mother's voice. Well, I mean, pre-alcoholism Mom, anyway. "Um, thanks, Princess, but I'm not really looking for free family counseling at the moment," I barked back at her over the sploshing sound in the toilet. I finished pissing and zipped my pants, neglecting to flush. I wandered over to the medicine cabinet and began rummaging for some Tylenol. To my astonishment, Ellie continued babbling.

"Look, I know I shouldn't interfere, but I worry about Sean. I mean, you must remember what it's like to come home and find your parents drunk. Sean needs..." She stopped rambling when I abruptly swung open the door and stared at her.

"Like, who the fuck are you supposed to be?" I asked in geniune confusion. I leaned against the frame of the door and watched her with honest bewilderment. "I mean, really. I come home and you're like, everywhere. You eat my cereal, you play my CDs, you leave your underwear in my couch, you clean my living room, you even go fucking grocery shopping. And now you're fucking lecturing me on how to communicate with my little brother. I don't know if anyone has pointed this out to you yet, but YOU DO NOT LIVE HERE. I mean, I'm sorry, but Sean and I kind of have a system here, and it's been working just fine since long before you ever came around. So, please, butt the hell out. I draw the line at you telling me how to run my fucking house." God. Ouch. I realized with something of a pang that I sounded way too much like my old man.

She bit her lip and looked down, staring at the chipped black fingernail polish of her clasped hands. "I'm sorry, it's just..."

"No. Shhh. Just shhh." I held my throbbing head in my hands. "Big-ass headache here, kiddo." I sighed and walked past her. I searched the floor until I'd found my jacket, then grabbed my keys off the table and headed for the door.

"Where are you going?" she asked, as if I'd just walked away from an important conversation. As if I'd actually been even remotely paying attention to a word she said.

"For a walk. It reeks of teen angst in here and I just can't dig that." I strode out the door, shut it a little harder than I intended, and shoved my hands in my pockets as I left the house.