Truth

3.Eight

When I was little, I had a bike. I would cycle around the perimeter of my small town. Race the trucks that came through with the stock for the stores. Time my laps around the farmer's fields. Steven would come with me on his bike too, I think that was half of the reason I actually enjoyed it. Other than the time I got to spend with my cool older brother, it just made me sweaty and tired, it made my throat scratchy and my chest hurt.

Then Steven sold his bike so he could get a deposit on his truck, saying girls liked cars not silly bikes. I stopped going out then, I didn't see the point. So my bike was left to rust, the bell going from shiny silver to brown. I stayed home watching TV on the couch while dad and Ellen argued about work or food or money. It was normally money. Steven would come home really late, quite often drunk even though he was only sixteen. I celebrated my eighth birthday with a bowl of breadsticks and a juice box, while Steven blasted loud metal music in his bedroom and dad slept all day with a migraine. Ellen was out with one of her boyfriend's then, and I lost track of them because I honestly couldn't care less about her love life.

I watched terrible cartoons, that I had never in my life enjoyed watching and then snuck one of dad's beers and gone to sleep. I woke up at three in the morning to see Steven sat watching TV by my head. He ruffled my hair and kissed my forehead; but the next morning he didn't talk to me, so I wasn't sure if that was real or just a dream. It felt real, but then so did everything when you were eight.