Page 56 of Unsupervised

Trey sits on the end of a long sectional couch in the living room, his feet propped on an ottoman, tapping away on a laptop.

“Hey, am I interrupting your work?”

“No, I’m trying to win an auction for this baby thing Sasha wants. These assholes keep sniping it out from under me.” He sets the laptop aside. “Okay, let’s hear it. What did you do?”

My arms cross over my chest. “What makes you think I did something?”

“Past experience.” He grins at me. “Remember the time you got powdered cocoa over every inch of the kitchen and we had to spend two hours cleaning it up before Mom found out?”

“You’re the one who fed me a spoon of it!”

“You asked for it!”

“I thought it would be like Nesquik! You knew what you were doing.”

The memory of that bitter powder in my mouth makes me wince but remembering how I had coughed and sprayed it everywhere makes me laugh, and he joins in.

“Anyway, I came to give you this and let you know I’ll pay you back the rest each month. It shouldn’t take me more than six months.”

Trey takes the check and raises an eyebrow at me.

“College isn’t for me. I’m going to go to work full time at Cooper’s Music. I don’t want to go to school when I don’t even have a career I want to pursue.”

“You’re dropping out?”

God, I hate that phrase. It beats in my head along with the word loser. A dropout. A nobody. I’m not going to let that dissuade me.

“Yes. I’m going to finish the music class because I enjoy it, and because others in my group are counting on me.” I look my brother in the eye. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. Please don’t think that I don’t, or that I’m giving up. I don’t want you to be disappointed in me.”

My voice cracks on the last word. Trey is the big brother I’ve always idolized, and the only family I have left now. If I lost him, I don’t know what I’d do.

“Kelly, I suggested college because you didn’t know what you wanted, and because you had no friends here. If you’ve figured out it isn’t for you and you want to try something else, that’s fine. It’s better than fine. You aren’t going to disappoint me by making your own decisions. That’s the point of all this. Tell me about your new job.”

We spend the next few minutes talking about my job and how I’m doing, then about him and how he’s adjusting to being a Dad. When I’m preparing to leave, he catches me off guard with a question.

“What has you down? You’re excited for your job but something else is going on. If it’s guy trouble, just tell me who to punch in the face.”

Is it that transparent? Forcing a smile, I shake my head. “You aren’t punching anyone. Yeah, I got my heart broken. Another adult experience to add to the pile, huh? But I’ll be okay.”

“Someone from school?”

Yeah, you could say that.

“I met him at school. It’s over now. It doesn’t matter. There are other things I want to focus on.” Just as I get to my feet, a horrible scream comes from the next room.

“Ahhhhh!”

Trey’s face pales.

Another scream. “Ow! Damn it!”

“Oh no, I forgot!” Trey leaps to his feet and rushes into the next room with me right on his heels. The sound of Rowan crying filters down the hall.

Fear fills me at the thought that Sasha has really hurt herself but that didn’t sound like her voice. It’s too high pitched. I enter the kitchen in time to hear another scream of “Fucking hell!” before Trey scoops up the culprit.

A robot vacuum cleaner.

“What the hell is going on?” Sasha asks, bleary eyed, a crying Rowan balanced on her hip. Poor Sasha. What a way to ruin a nap.