But my father had been holding that brick the entire time.
He stood at the edge of the driveway, just pacing like he was waiting for a pot to boil, turning the brick slowly in his hand while I tried to keep my face steady and my voice calm and my sister’s lies from crawling under my skin. The driveway smelled like motor oil that had seeped into concrete over decades, the kind of smell that never truly leaves, no matter how many times it rains. Heat rose off the pavement in thin waves. Gravel pressed sharp into my bare ankles. The late afternoon sun sat heavy on my shoulders like a hand trying to shove me down.
April was crying. Loudly. Theatrically. The kind of sobbing that always made my mother’s eyes soften and my father’s jaw relax, because in our house tears weren’t proof of pain. They were proof of power. April’s tears meant she was the one who mattered. April’s tears meant she would be protected.
“I didn’t do anything!” she screeched, pointing at me with shaking fingers, face red and wet and perfect. “She shoved me first!”
That was a lie.
I hadn’t shoved her. I hadn’t touched her. I hadn’t done anything except stand in the kitchen doorway and ask her, as evenly as I could, why she kept taking my stuff and hiding it. It was a stupid question. I knew that even as I asked it. In our house, asking why was always the beginning of punishment.
April had held my phone charger in her hand, dangling it like bait. “Because it’s funny,” she said with a smile that never reached her eyes. “You always look so stupid when you’re searching for things.”
“Give it back,” I said.
