If You Think I'm Gonna Come Up With A Title For This, You're Dead Wrong

Chapter 19

About two weeks ago, he had been talking with Raphael over some old movie they had found a while ago. Halloween was coming up, and while their father slept and their two brothers went out at the mention of it, he and Donnie watched The Haunting, never permitted to watch films like it when they were home, to Raph's amused incredulity. "We risk our lives every day," he had laughed, "and you're scared of a movie from the sixties?"

They were.

So, they had sat, side by side, as the smaller woman on-screen— "An ingenue," Donnie explained, not at all sure if he was right but parroting something you had said— slowly lost herself to the building. The conversation switched from the logistics of a house such as that to the concept of paranoia.

"I wouldn't lose my mind," Raph had announced. "What's the ghost gonna do?"

A scoff. "You say that," he rolled his eyes, "but you don't know. She was fine before."

"It's a house." The older boy rolled his eyes. "Creepy stuff happened there. So what?"
"That's not the point." He leaned against his hand, occasionally glancing back at him. "It's the isolation, the lack of trust in her own judgment, the gravity of any mistake she makes that's supposed to be scary."

He gestured at the television. "But this?" His back hit the cement as he leaned back. "Honestly, she's freaking out worse than you do."

He looked back at him. "I don't freak out that often."

A barking laugh. "That is a fucking lie."

"Is not." Heat rushed up his neck. "I can keep my cool."

"I've seen you around her, man. I'm not stupid."

He straightened up. "I'm not freaking out about her."

"Yes," he sighed, "you are." He lets his head fall back. "Whenever she leaves, you get all weird with your phone."

His voice rose an octave. "I do not!"

"Do too. You're doing it right now."

Donnie looks down at his hands. Sure enough, his phone is turned backwards and forwards in his hands, as if waiting for a call. He was. "It's," he failed to defend himself, "just because I like knowing where it is."

"Sure." He folded his legs onto the seat. "You know how many different ways there are for her to die? You aren't going to get told as soon as it happens if you sit next to the phone all the time."

He stopped.

"I mean," he continued, and Donnie swore he was just trying to get in his head, "she's great at getting herself in bad situations. At least with this chick," he pointed back to the screen, "it's ghosts or some shit. I'm surprised you let her out of your sight, from how you act."

Donnie takes a slow breath. "Raphael?"

He looks down at him. "Yeah?"

"I am painfully aware of that." He smiled. "The cast? Great reminder."

"So? Why do you?"

He sighed deeply. "Because keeping her underground all the time isn't fair."

"So?"

"I care about her, believe it or not." He folded his arms around his stomach. "Besides, we are hardly able to get enough food for ourselves a lot of the time. I can't exactly provide for her."

"So—"

"I have, yeah."

He leaned forward. He was not as good at studying people as Leo, but Donnie could feel the effort being made. "And you know—"