Page 17 of Unbearable

“Yes, I was with him. He said plenty.” Red dramatically tosses himself on the couch Lenny is hiding behind. He’s definitely been drinking and grabs the pillow beside him holding it over his face. After a moment, he removes it and stares at the ceiling. “You’re not a brother. You’ll never understand.”

“You’re right, I won’t. I don’t have a dick. Which is good because dicks just seem inconvenient to me.Butyou’ve never been a little sister and you’ll also never understand. I care about him.”

He takes my words in. They settle over him and he stares back at me, his eyes softening. “I get it, I do, but I’m going to stay mad for a little while.” And then he stands tossing a pillow at my face. It hits me and then falls to my lap. “The fucker deserves whatever shit I throw at him so don’t even try to make me be nice.”

He walks away after throwing another pillow at my head, into his room where he probably assumes Lenny is.

When he’s out of sight, Lenny pulls the blanket from her face. “I think Tyler is about to get all the shit jobs now.” She seems pleased by this, the corners of her mouth raising up. She’s probably just glad she won’t be getting them anymore.

Sliding out from behind the couch, she crawls down the hallway on her hands and knees. “Why are you crawling?” I call out after her.

She grins over her shoulder. “Just saving some time. Red likes me on my knees anyway.”

I take the blanket she was under and throw it over my face. “Gross!”

I don’t fall asleep right away. Instead, I go over the conversation with Tyler in my head and him telling me if he had been in the position to fall in love, it would have been me. There’s a good part of me that’s hopeful that might still happen someday.

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