Harper and I go way back. It's pre-historic, pretty much. We both grew up, only children, and next-door neighbors. I'm home-schooled, but she attends North Memorial High a little way down the road. I'd say that my education is probably leaps and bounds better than her, but it's not like she's dumb. Academically, I might have a better grasp on the finer points of trigonometry and classic Greek literature, but I've helped helped her study that both of us have benefited from my education.
My folks practically treat her like my sister and, gun-to-my-head if I had to describe our relationship? Siblinghood would be pretty on the ball. In fact, she's gone with me to historic landmark sites, national parks, museums, theater productions—not to mention regular extracurriculars like kick-boxing, karate, baseball (though she does track at high school), and others. Hell, my folks have taken her out camping and canoeing pretty much every time that I remember us going.
It's not like her parents are neglectful or anything, Mr. and Mrs. Clemente are pretty cool. Pretty much any time after school or classes, you could find us together at one or the other's house. Yep, we're pretty much inseparable. I wouldn't change it for the world.
Harper's a lanky girl, all elbows and knees, tall to a point. I'm still a head taller than she is, but she's still pretty tall. She's strong as a mule, too, and never holds back in mat-wrestling or at spars. In fact, I'm pretty sure that she tries to hit me harder than anybody else at our dojo or gym.
Just last year she punched me so hard that we had to get X-rays. Turns out, she bruised my lung! It was nuts!
But I didn't hold it against her. I think she still feels really bad for it, for some reason. It's not like I let it slow me down. Thanks to her, I've practically had to play catch-up in regards to physical activity. We always try to see how we measure up against each other and the competitions can get pretty fierce.
That doesn't just extend to the martial stuff like kick-boxing and karate, but to everything. Sports, eating, video-games, you name it. We're basically rivals. Rivals and best friends.
I've got my own friend circle in the home-schooling consortium in town and she's got hers in high school. There's practically no intersection except for us. The memes cross-over a lot, so when she's hanging out with them (and I tag along) I at least know what they're talking about. Same with my friends, whenever I hang with them, she gets along with them pretty well. I just don't like how much they tease me when she's out of earshot, always asking me why we're not dating. They say that we're practically married cause they know it pisses me off.
We're not even like that.
She's like a sister to me, after all.
Still—I've had stupid thoughts, sometimes.
I don't let them bother me. Not my friends, not my stupid weird thoughts. Puberty's been hard. It's not been any easier with Harper around, too. I pretty much spend every waking minute with her, playing video games or doing other things. That means... private time is pretty rare. Not only that, but she's almost walked in on me, more than once. Not that I really care, but I practically live like a monk when she's around. The times I look forward to most are when she's out-of-state to see her grandparents or something. It lets me get some steam out and enjoy some... ah... recreational websites that I'd rather not tell friends about.
Anyway, I don't think about it often. All that said, Harper and I really are super close. We hang out all the time, we play video games together—I've got an Xbox, she's got a Playstation and an Xbox, we play more than a couple of games on Xbox online together. We study whenever we can. We spar in the back yard (once we got the cops called on us, but that's a WHOLE story), we have dinner together every day—breakfast almost every day.
We've shared our dreams of doing big things with our lives together. Starting businesses, making video games, joining the military (thankfully we never did and now, never will), we dreamed of joining a pro wrestling outfit and absolutely slaying, of joining UFC and getting wrecked with incredible brain damage after just one match then being committed to the same care facility, of all kinds of things.
She knows everything about me!
I know everything about her, too!
Well. Not everything. Let me start at the beginning.
At about ten in the morning, a few hours ago, Harper swings the door to my bedroom open. It's Saturday today, no school, but I have some assignments due for this Monday for Mom & Dad. I'd been chilling on my bed, browsing memes on my laptop and listening to some junk fantasy e-book I got from Audible for free. Sadly, I was tuning it out, but I could always go back to it.
"Hey," she says, coming over and sitting on my legs.
"Hey—get off my legs?" I ask, pulling out an earbud.
"Move your legs, turd," she smirks, scooping up an Xbox controller and starting the console.
"Dude," I groan and pull my legs out from under her.
Her eyes are glued to the television screen, "Lucky I don't sit on your face," she mutters.
"What," I furrow my brow and shift my laptop screen to the side to look at her.
"You heard me," she leans back against the wall casually. "Beta," she says, smirking now.
"Dang," I say, honestly more confused than I want to let on. 'Does she... does she know that's sexual?' I wonder momentarily. 'It's Harper, c'mon," I reminded myself. With a mental shrug I went back to what I was doing, and so the day went on as it was.
She cracks some jokes (usually at my expense), plays some games (her favorites are RDR2 and GTAV, which I think are kinda dumb—we usually play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, zombies, or the Master Chief Collection which I got recently) and we just hang out for a few hours, right? Anyway, I alternate between doing my own thing on the laptop and joining her as player two from time to time.
It was during one of those times, when the laptop was set off to the side and we were in the middle of an online match (with some of our friends after having set a custom lobby up) when my parents call up from downstairs.
"Brandon?" I hear my mom yell.
"Yeah?" I call back, lobbing a sticky grenade onto the other team's tank.
"We're headed out! Order something for dinner! We're going over to Brenda and Tom's place!" she shouts, referring to another couple from the homeschool consortium. They've been focusing a lot on expanding their own social circle these days, and I was happy to see them enjoying themselves.
"Kay!" I yell my response.
With that, I didn't hear anything else until the car drove off. I barely heard that; however, on the account that our so-called "friends" were talking some mad shit and had to learn a violent lesson.
At any rate, after a few more rounds of it, as we were setting up another map, Harper speaks up, suddenly, "Hey guys, I think that me and Brandon are out."
I gave her a drawn-out questioning look, brows furrowed deep, as she turned off the mic and leans back against the wall.
"Why?" I asked her, my mic muted too, as our friends lament.
She shrugs letting her long fingers slacken on the controller. "Bored," she explains, noncommittally.
I shrug and, sighing, unmute my mic. "Yeah, we're out for now. I'll send a message if something changes."
"What're you guys gonna do?" one of our friends, Tyson, asks over chat. "Make out?" That elicits a few giggles from the peanut gallery.
"With your mom, I guess," I quip and, after a pause, add: "if she's taking appointments again." The banter carried on for a bit, but nothing really worth mentioning was said before we finally quit out of the lobby.
After the absolutely brutal banter-sesh, I turn to Harper asking, "What's up?"
"Wanna make out?" she asks, turning her head to me in a lazy dead-pan. The look in her half-lidded eyes is a sober (and sobering) observation in the predatory. The curl of her smirk doesn't do anything to relieve me of my concern either.
I stare, eyes wide with naked shock. 'Did she really say that?' I think to myself.
I hesitate in my incredulity, feeling like I'm experiencing some kind of cognitive reboot. I swallow, then ask, "What?" in disbelief as she turns on the bed to face me.