I remember looking down the hall as I closed her bedroom door and saw him standing there.
He was, like Katie, well over six foot. And suddenly, I felt small, smaller than I ever had.
And then he looked at me. He was handsome and intense, with eyes that seemed like they could look straight into your soul.
He stared at me, and then his gaze shifted down. Immediately, I remember feeling so self-conscious. I felt nervous, scared almost as he stood there.
"... You must be Katie's brother?" I managed to say, trying to hide the shaking in my voice.
"Yep," he had said, looking away as if he was uninterested, grabbing for his bedroom doorhandle.
I had expected him to walk away, leave the conversation, and do whatever he was doing with the box I now noticed he was holding.
But he looked at me again. Well, I wouldn't say me-me, but rather my body.
"What's your name?" He asked.
"... Violet."
"Mm," he nodded and pushed his door open. "You're new here?"
I nodded.
"Friend of Katie's?"
"... Yes."
"Hm," he nodded again. He felt intimidating. Not with his words but his appearance. The way he stood, his back straight, making himself taller than he already was. His wide shoulders that made him look larger.
He glanced at me again, this time my face, and then he went into his room and shut the door.
I didn't go to the bathroom then. I turned and went back into Katie's room.
"Hey, what took you so long?" She asked, popping a few chips in her mouth.
"... I met your brother."
She let her notebook fall to her lap and looked at me. "He didn't do anything, did he? I know he can be a bit of a... well... He didn't do anything, right?"
"No, no, he didn't do anything." I furrowed my brows. Suddenly confused, suddenly panicky.
She sighed in relief, "Okay, good. I'd go pop him in the jaw a few times..." she paused, "and then kick him somewhere sensitive."
I had laughed softly. "Is he moving out? I saw him carrying a box."
She nodded, "Yeah, he bought an apartment closer to his college. I can't wait till he's gone, though. He's such a jerk."
"Oh."
After about two hours, I had left, walking down the street back to my sister and I's house.
The house had been cleaned, the boxes, not that we had very many anyway, had been stacked inside each other by the doorway.
"Hi," Clara said. She was in the kitchen, washing the new dishes and plates we had bought yesterday. "How was your day?"
"It was okay." I slid my backpack onto the love seat we had found a few days ago that someone had been selling outside their house.
"Yeah? You didn't text me. I've been worried, Violet," she said.
"Oh... I'm sorry. Katie invited me over to study. I'll make sure to text you next time. I won't do it again."
Clara had turned the faucet off, drying her hands with a paper towel.
"It's okay, Violet," she smiled softly, looking down at her newly cleaned dishes.
"Well," she started. "What do you say we order are first actual pizza?"
I remember looking up at her, excited, but it had lasted briefly. "Shouldn't we save it, though?"
She had nodded, "we should, but I think we can splurge just this once."
So, we had ordered pizza that night, two, even though we knew we wouldn't eat it all, and had talked, sometimes just sitting there, both of us quiet.
And then Clara had started to smile.
"Our first house," she said. "It's almost hard to believe."
I nodded. It was hard to believe. Sometimes, I wondered if I pinched myself hard enough if this hallucination would end, and I'd be back in the orphanage.
Having to follow all those rules, those restrictions. Having to wonder what if.
I sometimes wanted to. Sometimes, I wanted to pinch myself so hard I bruised to see if this was real, to see if I would wake up in this house or the orphanage.
But I never did, because if this was, in fact, just some dream, I never wanted to wake up from it.