HER BROTHER

     Faith unstrapped her seat belt and went out of the car. She looked at Nora and Charlotte that were far ahead. 

       "How am I supposed to catch you guys?!" she yelled. 

     "You do that by running up!" Nora screamed. 

    She started running towards them and they jogged away from her giggling. She looked up. 

        "Seems you two planned against me. How could you be running so fast and far away from me? Are you not supposed to be rivals?!" 

        "You asked for fun and we are giving it to you!" Charlotte yelled back. 

      "What? Were you thinking we would let you sit and watch?!" Nora yelled. 

        "How is this fun?! Am practically exercising!" Faith yelled and picked up from there. 

      They played tag until other people around the beach joined them. They played until the sunset. Charlotte suggested that they go clubbing and she promised Faith that they weren't going to get drunk, no much drinks and all. Nora agreed to it. 

        Faith wondered why she had not seen Ethan after he came to her office. She had to ask Charlotte, Charlotte said Ethan had gone out of town. Faith had nodded. No wonder, she had not seen him. 

      They sat around the bar and shared some glasses of cocktails while waiting for the night to pass so that they could go over to the club. While Nora and Charlotte had chattered amongst themselves, Faith let her mind wander to other things. She suddenly thought of Charlie and taught of her elder brother Joshua. She recalled their childhood days when they were in grade and middle school, she remembered that Joshua had had a lot of female friends. 

       Yes, he had them coming at him and it made sense to her now why they all stopped coming. Maybe he had told them that he was gay, even in high school. High school was the toughest and most stupid level of school one attended in life. Had Joshua stayed hidden? How did he manage to hide it for so long? Had he confided in anyone except her? She suddenly wished like seeing him, she has a lot of questions for him. 

       She needed to know when he discovered himself, she needed to know how he felt when he first knew who he was in that family he found himself, she needed to know which boys he had been attracted to then. Getting closer to Charlie was going to answer all that questions for her since she didn't get close to her brother when he came out to them. She had joined her father and had seen her brother as an abomination, her biggest regrets. 

      The day that Joshua had come out to her. Maybe she shouldn't blame herself so much, she was still young and naive and under her father. It was that night that Joshua had come inside her room she could still see his silhouette standing by her door like it had been yesterday. She had peeped at him with one eye as he lingered by the door. She has been a little scared. She had asked herself if it was his ghost. 

        "Angel?" That was what he called her. 

    She had raised her head from the bed. "Josh?" 

          "Yes, it's me." He had started towards her. "You're not asleep yet?" 

        "No. Could you turn on the lights?" 

        "We better discuss in darkness." Her heart had sunk.