Seeking Solace

Sometimes we forget that we love those incessant naggers that we call younger siblings. Could you even imagine a world where they did not even exist?

“Kristle.”

“Stop.”

“Kristle.”

“Go away.”

“Kristle.”

“GET OUT OF MY ROOM FALLON.”

The sixteen year old girl flipped her dark curly hair and glared at her little brother, who was holding an old yellow sheet and sticking out a his bottom lip in a look that added more flame to her fire.

“You promised you’d make the fort with me. When you going to do it??”

“When are you going to do it. You need to work on your grammar. And not right now, I’m tired and settling into bed. Don’t give me that look!”

The eleven year old rolled his eyes and dropped the bed sheet onto this sister’s floor without another thought, and turned to leave.

“Pick that up!” she whined, rolling off the bed and putting her hands on her hips.

With a mad flourish of her arms, she picked up the sheet, threw it out into the hallway, and slammed the door. She stood there for a moment, fuming at the annoyance her little brother caused, and then fell with a sigh onto her bed, watching the fan above her head turn around and around, making a whirring and whooshing sound.

Why did she have to have such an aggravating little brother? She took another long look at the fan, and felt her temper rise when she heard her door creak open.

“Kristle. I want some ramen noodles.”

“Make it yourself-wait. Fallon. It’s ten o’clock at night. You can’t eat that late.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“Go ask mom and see what she says.”

The young boy groaned, his body collapsing like a noodle. That was enough to prove to her that he already knew what the answer would be. When he left the room for the second time, she snuggled into her bed and pulled out her laptop so she could browse Tumbler, the lamp on her bedside table giving a soft glow to the room around her. A couple of hours later, her bedroom door creaked open again.

“FALLON. GO BACK TO BED.” Kristle whispered furiously, slightly embarrassed to be seen looking at pictures of one of her favorite actors doing a duck face.

“I had a bad dream. Can I sleep with you?” he asked, dwarfed by his pillow and Star Wars comforter.

“No. I’m tired. I’m about to go to sleep.” Kristle told him, closing her laptop. (Even though, to tell the truth, if he hadn’t interrupted, she still would have probably been on the computer for another hour.) “Besides. You keep me up all night cause you’re scared of the dark.”

“So?” the little brother asked obstinately. His older sister pointed just as obstinately to the door.

“Go. Back. To. Bed. NOW.”

Begrudgingly, the little boy adjusted the hold on his pillow and let the blanket drag behind him as he closed the door. Kristle rolled her eyes and turned off the lights.

Sometimes she just wished that she didn’t even have a brother...

The next morning, she was surprised to have been able to sleep in for so long. Usually Fallon would invade her space with either a dirt clod in her bed or a water gun in her face. She looked at her phone to check the time again.

12:00pm. Not too bad for a Saturday.

The girl stretched and made her way out into the hallway, yawning and scratching her bed head. Why did the house seem so quiet? Fallon usually was running around with his Pokemon toys by this time. A little curious, she peeked into his room to see where he was.

To her surprise, instead of being met with a black hole of mess that was her brother’s room, with a copious amount of toys littering the floor providing a falling hazard for all who entered, she came face to face with a quaint little office room with a framed picture of a mountain with an inspirational quote at the bottom. She looked around at the purple walls and the neat piles of papers where the Darth Vader lamp used to sit.

“Mom?”

She found her mom in the kitchen, cooking a lunch and attempting to wash the dishes at the same time.

“I was wondering when you were going to wake up.” her mother chuckled, drying a dish and putting it up in the cabinet.  

“Where’s Fallon? What happened to his room?” the teenager asked, sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs.

“Fallon? Who’s that?”

“What? What do you mean who’s that? Fallon? The annoying little brother of mine that interrupts my peace?”

Her mother looked confused as she drying a cup.

“Where did you come up with this thing of a little brother?”

Kristle stared at her. Was this for real? Without another word, she rushed off to the living room to flip through the photo album.

No Fallon.

All the pictures made it look like she was an only child. For a moment, she began to wonder if this was some sort of joke or test to make her appreciate him or something. She knew she was sometimes mean to him, but this was going a bit far… In fact, pictures where she knew Fallon was supposed to be in them was either nonexistent, or replaced with a picture of herself.

“Mom? What is all this? Where’s Fallon? What happened to all of his pictures?” she asked, closing the photo album.

“I don’t know who Fallon is Kristle. Is it someone from school?”

“Ok Mom. Very funny. Where’s my little brother? Your son? Come on. Enough is enough.”

She watched as her mom’s head peeked around the corner.

“Kristle. You don’t have a brother. I don’t have a son. You’re an only child. What is making you go crazy like this? Are you on drugs or something?”

“MOM.”

Kristle could feel her temper rising again. She was already sick and tired of this joke. What was going on? Where was her brother? She stood there staring at her mom for a good long while, trying to figure all of this out. It would have been impossible to change his room overnight. His room had been a mess-with white walls-not purple. The office hadn’t even had a smell of fresh paint.

She spent the next hour trying to find any evidence of Fallon Ferriby, without success. The boxes of things in the attic showed no proof that a little boy had ever lived with them, there was none of the junk food that he liked, and his elementary school teacher’s website didn’t even show him on the register.

At this point she began to panic. Without giving another look to her mother, who was now sitting on the computer playing spades and giving occasional worried glances at her daughter, Kristle made her way to what used to be Fallon’s room. It was weird to her to see it so clean… With a clear floor instead of a carpet of toy cars and stuffed animals.

She suddenly had a flashback of when she found out she was going to get a sibling-to when he was born and she felt so proud to be an older sister. What had happened? She used to read him books and tell him stories. There was one time they went out and had an adventure in the woods where they pretended to be running from aliens.

Kristle felt a tear run down her cheek. Where did he go? Did he no longer exist? What had even happened? With a horrific thought, she remembered how the night before she had secretly wished she had never had a brother.

No. It couldn’t be.

And then she remembered something.

Fallon had drawn her a picture not too long ago, and she had shoved it into her desk without another thought.

She ran to her room and tore out her drawer, only to find that it was gone. No one had known that it was in there, so it was impossible that it was just all a part of some sick joke. In anguish, she fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands.

That night, after having a very quiet dinner with her mother and father that she wasn’t used to, she lay in her bed staring up at the ceiling fan, not even thinking about her computer. How could a little boy simply cease to exist? How was it even possible? She liked her peace and quiet, but this was just unbearable… She almost missed the incessant nagging of fort building, and the loud noises he would make in the morning.

Suddenly, her door slowly creaked open.

“Kristle? When you going to build a fort with me?”

The girl jumped up to see the eleven year old standing in her doorway with his messy dark brown hair and pouty face, clutching a yellow bed sheet.

“Fallon?! Where have you been?!” she exclaimed, pouncing on him and throwing her arms around him.

“Um. In my room…” he said hesitantly, confused at his sister’s sudden change.

“Your room?”

Kristle jumped up and ran to his room, which was no longer a purple office, but a glorious mess of toys and food that he had snuck in there.

“Are you going to build a fort with me Kristle?” the little boy asked, coming up from behind her. The girl smiled.

“Yes Fallon. Let’s build a fort…”