glances up from his phone, his eyes narrowed but not exactly surprised. I get the sense he does remember our conversation from last night. It was the first time I’ve come close to losing my temper with him. Now I’m near losing it again. When he was home, we’d fight over stupid stuff, but I’ve hardly ever stood up to my brother on real things. I don’t know what’s different, but something is.
“Yeah,” he says evenly, following a moment’s pause. “She was. She lived down the hall from me freshman year. I think we collectively hooked up with the entire rest of the hallway before figuring out how we felt about each other.” He dips a fry into his ketchup. “But we did,” he continues, “and I had to put an end to random hookups. For a little longer, anyway.” He winks, and once again, I’m irritated.
I put down my burger. “Why do you do that?” I ask calmly. The anger hones my questions into needle points.
Lewis studies me. “Do what?”
“You ask me about girls, or tease me or whatever, or tell me about your gorgeous conquests.” I give him a look that I hope comes off pitying or dismissive. “Is getting laid the only thing you care about?”
“When you get laid, you won’t ask me that question,” he replies.
I’ve had enough. I’m tired of Lewis treating me like I’m nobody because my life doesn’t resemble his. I’m really tired of him playing everything off like it’s easy or a joke or insignificant. The only people who never get frustrated are people who don’t care.
I get up from the booth and throw my napkin onto the table. I don’t even know where I’m going. It doesn’t matter. Just not here. But when I start for the door, Lewis’s hand grips my wrist, holding me back.
“Hey, hold on,” he says, his voice softening. I reluctantly face him. “I didn’t mean—” He shakes his head. “It was a joke. I’m sorry,” he continues, sounding surprisingly genuine.
I wait by the booth, unmoving, reluctant to stay. But I have no choice, really. Unless I want to spring for a four-hundred-dollar Uber to New Hampshire, I have nowhere to go except Lewis’s car.
I sit back down, scowling. Lewis says nothing. “Just because I haven’t dated a dozen girls doesn’t mean I’m a loser,” I say eventually. I’ve known for years what my brother thinks of me, and I’ve chosen to ignore it or, at the very least, hide my resentment of it, convincing myself he couldn’t possibly view me that way. It’s liberating and dangerous to finally put words to the feeling instead.
Lewis’s face falls. His bravado disappears, and for once I’m seeing my brother as himself, not the debonair role he plays for his friends and job interviewers and probably even his girlfriends. He’s serious, even somber. “I don’t think you’re a loser,” he says.
The lack of prevarication in his reply startles me. It’s not like Lewis to speak so straightforwardly instead of playing it cool and letting me read whatever I want into his detached dismissiveness.
I don’t believe him. He probably only wants the easy way out of this conversation. He doesn’t know how to deal with me talking back, and he doesn’t like it.
“I don’t,” he insists. “I think you take everything really seriously.”
It’s the understatement of the century. “Some things are serious,” I say, knowing it’s futile to try to convince Lewis to care, and feeling irrationally compelled to regardless. “Like Mom.”
Lewis looks away, his eyes flitting to the parking lot outside, gravelly pavement under the slate-gray sky. “Some things are,” he says. “Not everything. I just want to make sure you’re cutting yourself some slack.”
I notice how once again he’s dodged discussing Mom and once again completely misunderstood what it’s like inside my head. Cut myself some slack? I wrestle for the right words to explain this fundamental fact to him. “I’m not like you, okay?” I say quietly, staring at my plate. It’s hard to admit—hard to confirm what Lewis has said and felt and implied about me for years. We are different. He’s effortlessly cool, and I am a loser.