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I nodded, even though my heart was still thumping so hard and fast, I thought I might just pass out.

"Good. Everything is going to be just fine," he assured me. "You'll see. You want anything, need anything?"

"No thank you."

"See you later," he said and started out. He paused in the doorway to look back. "Don't blame me for my feelings," he begged, and then he was gone.

Who should I blame for my own feelings? I wondered. I couldn't help wanting someone to love me as much as Roy did. Was it possible that his love for me was so strong, so powerful and overwhelming that it could wash away years of being brother and sister? Can someone love you so much that you can't help but fall in love with him?

Maybe this was why I never became interested in anyone at school? Maybe, like Roy, I had something deep within me telling me there was more between us or could be more between us. Lots of girls want a boyfriend as nice as their big brother. Maybe I was lucky. Mine could be my big brother.

Or maybe this tingle inside me wasn't a tingle of excitement so much as it was a tingle of fear. Roy was right. Blood was blood and we could have just as easily met someplace for the first time and fallen in love, but we hadn't, and all my life I thought we had the same blood in our veins. It wasn't something I could forget in a moment, even after a thrilling kiss. And maybe, maybe it wasn't something I should forget?

The more I learned about myself, the more twisted and entwined my life became. I felt like someone trying to unravel strings only to get things more knotted and confused. I had the strong sense that I wasn't anywhere near all the important discoveries. Something else loomed out there, some other dark truth that would make even all this seem like nothing.

All the turmoil and emotional tugs of war within me exhausted me. I fell asleep and was still asleep when Beni finally came home. Mama, fortunately for Beni, had not yet returned from work and Ken was probably still in some nm-down bar. Roy had to work late so it was just the two of us. I heard her sobbing and woke. She was standing there, looking down at me.

"What is it, Beni?" I cried and sat up quickly.

"More trouble," she said. "More trouble I caused."

"You mean being in detention?"

She laughed through her tears.

"Hardly," she said. "I been in detention many times before this and Mama knew it?'

"Then what is it, Beni? Did you get into a fight?" I asked, thinking that if she had, she didn't do badly. There wasn't a scratch on her nor did her clothes look a bit rumpled.

She took a deep breath and held something out in her closed right hand. I looked closely and saw it was a photograph. She opened her fingers and I gasped.

It was a picture of her sprawled on her back, naked, her legs apart. She started to cry harder.

"They did do it?' she bawled. "What I was afraid they'd done at the party. See?"

"Oh Beni, throw it away. Tear it up and throw it away," I said unable to look at it.

"What good's that?" she said, even though she did rip it up.

"They've got more. They've got the negatives?' "Who gave it to you?"

"Carlton," she said with a bitter smile. "He claimed Jerad had it and gave it to him to give to me."

"Why?"

"They want two hundred and fifty dollars for the negatives. I have to bring it to the old mattress warehouse on Grover Street tomorrow night at eight or they swear they'll give out the pictures to everyone at school. I'm just going to die, Rain. I'm just never going back to school and Mama will hate me, have to run off like you did, only for real," she said.

"Don't talk like that, Beni," I said.

"What else am I going to do, huh? Mama's going to find out that I lied about the party. She'll want me to run away," she said.

I sat there, staring at her for a moment.

"We'll just have to get the money and see if they'll give us the negatives," I said.

"Where we going to get that much money?"

"How much do we have together?" I asked her.