Someone I Used to Know - By Blakney Francis Page 0,58

looks, my sisters had also inherited my mother’s pickiness. I couldn’t say the same for her talent. Don’t get me wrong, Mary-Rose might’ve been even more talented than Mom and Dad combined, with Oscars for both acting and directing, and Caaren and Amelie were damn good writers, but Brittany was barely passable on a television series and Jemma considered herself a professional celebrity.

Adley was the complete opposite of them. Actually, she was the complete opposite of the entire lifestyle that my sisters so wholly embodied. I loved them, but they were a bunch of snobs. I was their baby brother, and I’d been an important uniting factor in the close relationship they now got to share. By simply being born of the opposing sex, I’d given them something to bond together, against. Yet, despite my position at the bottom of the food chain in my family tree, I knew that no girl would ever be good enough for me in their eyes.

I tried to summon together a mental picture of Adley interacting with my family. My mind took me back to the last time we’d all been together two Christmases ago. Mom was sitting at the piano, dipping her fingers along the keys and belting a festive tune, with the spirit of a stage actress. Brittany was holding court at her side, filling in the words of the song that the nearly empty wine bottle in front of them persuaded her to forget. I had no doubt there were ulterior motives attached to my sister’s kindness (my guess was she was looking for a guest spot from Mom to get a little rating boosts for her show). Dad and Mary-Rose’s husband were discussing the fine turkey arranged for our meal, as if they’d had anything to do with bird’s capture or preparation.

I tried to draw Adley into the picture, imagining her with us; maybe cooing over Caaren’s new baby or discussing Jemma’s latest attempt to get us to sign onto a reality show. Adley’s blond hair and slim figure blurred and shimmered out of focus though, always just out of my grasp. Not even my imagination could place her with them. It was as if they existed on two different planes of reality, impossible to combine or intersect.

“Where are you right now?” For once, her face was unguarded, as she pulled me out of my thoughts with a soft, curious half-smile.

“I’m back in the bedroom with that fantastically talented mouth of yours,” I lied, but it didn’t stop my body from responding positively to the seduction of my words.

She rewarded me by making my lie come true.

***

We lay together afterwards, and I watched her eyelids flicker in her sleep, wondering what kind of world she battled in her dreams. The sun had kissed the world goodnight a few hours ago, and I was surprised she’d stuck around after our latest coupling. She came across as the ‘hit it and quit it’ type. In her defense, we’d been going at it pretty vigorously for the past few hours. My legs felt like jello. I couldn’t have stood if I tried.

My body was satiated, but my mind raced restlessly. Maybe, I’d entered an alternate universe where the girl I’d just slept with only wanted me for sex and I couldn’t fall asleep because of my feelings. Surely, it couldn’t be real.

Adley’s choices weren’t the only ones that were backwards. She’d sucked me in, twisted me until I was tangled, and somewhere along the way, I’d become backwards, too. Something small had shifted within me, and I felt irrevocably different. The memory of my family lingered in the back of my mind.

Despite my choice of careers, I’d always been a little different than the rest of my family. We were from Australia, born and raised, but my family was undeniably ‘Hollywood’. They loved everything about our lives: their jobs, the spotlight, and especially the prestige and perks they were granted because of it. To me, my life was what it was. It was all I’d ever known.

I’d always done things my own way, even if I was walking a familiar path. I didn’t have patience for hangers-on or their sad, parasitic lives.

I lived with the extras of what I did. I didn’t live for them. I was indifferent. I’d thought my indifference was just simply part of who I was, like the color of my eyes or my preference for chocolate chip muffins. Adley forced me to see things differently. Indifference wasn’t a