Dissolving

Chapter 28 - Bigfoot

Suddenly, I don't feel so good.

My previous belief that I am ready to tackle anything, now that Alex has told me that he (still) loves me, is quickly turning into the realization that I was just trying to delude myself. The prospect of a family meeting leaves me all jittery and with legs that feel like jelly.

The meanwhile familiar hurricane of thoughts is attacking my brain yet again, almost rendering me breathless. My brothers would probably call it me having my head in the clouds, but that is not the case. My mind is going into overdrive, conjuring up scenarios like rapid gunfire of what might be the reason for this "sort of" family meeting.

Has Will arrived and we are finally celebrating his birthday?

This would be the most welcome outcome, of course. But almost a bit too good to be true. Unfortunately, there are other, a lot less pleasant options that spring to mind. Something tells me this family meeting won't be good. Though, that may well just be the paranoia that seems to have taken hold of me lately.

Is Alex going to tell us about his girlfriend?

While most of us would consider that to be a positive thing, it would make me feel sad. Now that I have teamed up with Sam and we have come up with a few suitable plans to get him and Jo to meet up again, this would definitely ruin that.

I reckon I could scare her off, somehow, that mysterious girlfriend of his, if she were the reason for whatever announcement Alex has to make. But to be honest, even if I could think of a few things to make her life miserable and have her wanting to run for the hills, I wouldn't really want to get involved with stuff like that. It sounds like something a very bratty little sister would do.

And although I could easily find a few brothers who would be happy to award me the title of "brattiest sister in the world", I have no intentions to do something mean to my oldest brother, or to anyone he likes. She would have to be an incredibly horrible person for me to consider this and I somehow doubt that Alex has such bad taste in women. But I cannot know for sure, since I don't remember him ever introducing a girlfriend to us.

Has Jack ratted us out to our older brothers about yesterday?

That is another possibility, but one that I'd rather not think about. Jack is not the kind of person to do something so mean, even if he has not really been himself lately. The only reason for him to do such a thing would be if us three youngest really pissed him off – the mall stunt was bad, but surely not bad enough – or if he wanted to divert Alex's attention away from his own very questionable college plans.

Has Alex decided to move out?

When this thought finds its way to the forefront of my mind, my heart stops for a moment and a breath hitches in my throat. I must have flinched, too, because I feel how Alex's grip tightens on my hand and he stops, causing me to bump right into him. We are already on the last step of the stairs so the impact is minimal, but I still let out a little yelp because it came unexpected.

"What's wrong?" Alex asks me.

I rub my nose that has collided with his arm and sheepishly look up at him. Hopefully he won't be able to read from my expression how troubled my thoughts are. I have no desire to explain to him the chaos that is my mind right now.

"Nothing. I... I only felt a little pain in my knee when I took a bit of a funny step just now and it... it startled me. It's nothing, really," I claim, crossing the fingers of my free hand behind my back because of that little white lie.

"Sam did check it out, didn't he?"

My oldest brother furrows his eyebrows questioningly at me. He looks a bit worried.