Distortion

Chapter 2: Sibling Rivalry

He'd been born the middle child of a middle-class family. His older sister was the star pupil. A brainiac by birth and trade, she took to books like a moth to a flame. She was beautifully dull. Plain like an modest garden. Nothing too special. But just special enough to garner the attention needed.

His younger brother was the womanizer that put Hugh Hefner to shame. He was unnaturally handsome and charming, witty always with underlying sexual innuendos. The social butterfly to his sister's mothlike aptitude. He first swept a girl off her feet at the age of fourteen, and I'm sure he hasn't looked back since.

That left no room for the middle child to grow. Caught between the significance of brains and the development of sex, my best friend was forced to grow abnormally normal. He couldn't be smart, at least not like his sister. And he couldn't be flirty, at least not like his brother. So what could he be?

He could be a runner. That he could do. He had the legs for it. And the reason. When his sister turned up her study music of Metallica and Alice in Chains, he'd sprint down the stairs of their two-story home, out the front door, and down the gravel road before anyone even realized he'd opened his door. When the lights went out after dark and all were to be asleep, he'd hear his brother's muted whispers followed by a girly giggle. After the click of the door, he'd slip on his shoes and run. When his head felt too full, he'd run. When he felt too light, he'd run.

He didn't have much to show for it. He didn't join the track team and go to state. He didn't let his parents know that he had a love and aptitude for the task. All he had was a healthy heart and some muscular legs, but who ever looked at those?

Somehow the runner fell into politics, traded in his tennis shoes for dress shoes, exchanged sweaty tees for button-down suits. I'd blame it on his father, on his mother, on the pressure of society, on the universe. But in the end, my best friend chose politics because he felt he had nowhere left to go.

Now he stood, wavering in front of me, in my unkempt living room with, once again, nowhere to go.

"Britt, I've lied enough, don't you think?"

"On the contrary, Mr. President, I don't think you've lied enough." I tugged his hands, pulling until he conceded to step closer to me. I never would've been able to move him by myself. He was a larger than life being to me, both in mind and body. He covered my frame in more aspects than one and constantly stepped over boundaries laid out before him.

His fear was a smell easily identified by the perspiration that radiated from his pores. A smell that could easily be identified by a woman that had been intimate with the man. He leaned into me, pulling his hands from mine. They wrapped around me, tugging my body into his, closer than I had originally intended. Yet, I didn't protest.

His nose nuzzled into my hair and his lips pressed a chaste kiss to the skin directly behind my ear. He shook, slightly, in my arms. He murmured quietly into the pale strands of hair that caressed his face by their own will.

"Please, don't call me that," he begged. His voice was no higher than a whisper.

I could remember his voice only being that low twice throughout our entire relationship. Once, well, it's unladylike to discuss. The other time, however, had been a fight. A fight about the inevitable future and my ability to rain on his parade.

"I'm bulletproof," he had said, as if challenging the world to shoot at him. He'd been cocky, not quite the man that I had chosen as my better half. The challenge to the world had been a challenge to me.

"Literally? Because I'd love to shoot you." He narrowed his dark eyes in response. His lips parted slightly as he battled for a quick remark. He found none and I provided no out.