Tommy

"Shirley, for the last time, I didn't want her at school. It just happened, okay?"

"There's gotta be something you can do," she replied.

I sighed, lowering my phone for just a moment as I paced around, my stress level rising to new heights. I took a deep breath and raised my phone to my ear again.

"What do you expect me to do? Tie her to her chair and lock her in her room before I get on the bus?"

"Just scare her out of going to school."

I scoffed. "Yeah, like it's that easy."

"How is that not easy? In what universe does someone actually want to go to school? Just the thought of school makes me feel like throwing up." She gagged. "I thought about it."

I sighed, finally crashing onto Harry's bed. The tension in my shoulders built up, bunching their muscles enough to give me my own personal shoulder pads.

"What made her want to go to school in the first place?" Shirley asked. "I thought you said she didn't like it."

"I..." I sighed again, massaging the bridge of my nose. "It was all Harry's fault." I paused, my pride pushing its way up my throat as I forcefully swallowed it down. "And... I guess mine, too."

"Would you get to the point?"

"Mom asked her if she wanted to go to school. She said no. And she was going to go online, but we..."

"You... what?" she asked.

I bit my lip, ready for her rant. "Later on, we told her to get some chips, and she said no, so Kyle made Harry and I go instead-"

"Point."

"Okay, long story short, Harry poured soda over her head and she decided to go to school with us."

A pause. "You poured soda over her head?"

"Well, she didn't bring us chips, so I thought-"

"Oh, un-be-lie-vable!"

I sighed for the third time and waited as she went on and on about how idiotic we were and about the consequences of Diana going to Summit High with us.

She loved repeating herself over and over and over...

At the end of the stream of curses and insults directed at me and my brothers, peppered with colorful names like 'idiot', 'moron', 'brainless', and 'dolt', I was finally allowed to speak.

"Are you done?"

"Obviously," she sighed, sounding exhausted. Well, it was a long tangent.

"Okay, look, maybe she'll change her mind. It was spur-of-the-moment. When it's almost time for school to start, most likely she'll back out and go online. So... let's just hope."

"Just tell her why you don't want her to go."

"It'll just egg her on. It's all out of spite, Shirley."

"No, tell her the actual reason. Tell her about-"

I glanced out the door before speaking. "I'm not saying anything about Amy," I whispered.

"Why not?!"

"Shirley, it's not as easy as you think to broach a subject like that!"

"Eventually, she's going to find out. Might as well," Shirley said insensitively.

"No, I'm not-"

"UGH!"

I leaned the phone away from my ear, wincing.

"Why do you always have to make everything so complicated?! Amy's gone, so move on! Tell her before it gets worse!"

I clenched my jaw, pushing down my anger. "I'm not saying anything. It's... it's none of her business," I said through gritted teeth. "She's leaving in six months, anyway."

I didn't want to go off on her. Sure, she did the same, but she was just a bit annoying and loud. Whenever I went off on her, she'd burst into tears. I didn't want to scare her like that.

But I really wished she could be more sympathetic about Amy. My God, hardly four months had passed since she died, and Shirley already expected me to just 'get over it already'. As she would say, it wasn't like we got along much, anyway.

In part, she was right. My— our— relationship with Amy had been tense in recent years, but that didn't mean we didn't love her. That didn't stop her from being our baby sister.

"Six months is perfectly enough for everyone at school to ruin our lives over this, Tommy. And she might even stay longer! It's gonna screw everything up for us."

"Oh, please, Shirley, this'll hardly involve you. The ones who'll be taking the brunt of the force is me and Harry, and you know it."

"Excuse me?! I'm your girlfriend, remember? I don't think I'll be able to handle being with you if people are saying so many things." As I feared, she started to cry. "I-it's not fair. You know I do a lot for you, right? I take damage when I'm with you, and I willingly take it because I love you. So many girls hate me because you picked me out of so many options..."

I sighed. I hated when she cried like this.

"We already have so little time together because of this... ghost twin foster rat. I don't want everyone at school to drive a bigger wedge between us. Don't let that happen. I can't live without you."

'Ghost twin foster rat'? That was... new.

"Okay. I... I'm sorry, Shirley. I love you, too, and I don't want you suffering because of all this. I'll... I'll talk to her, okay? I'll try to convince her."

Jack walked past my door as I spoke, stopping short and peeking inside.

She sniffled. "Okay. Love you, Tommy-bear."

I winced. Thank God Jack couldn't hear that. "I love you, too. Bye."

"Wait," she whined. "I called you Tommy-bear."

I hesitated, glancing at Jack, who smirked as he leaned on my doorframe. I glared at him and covered my mouth as I whispered in the microphone.

"Love you, Shirl-bear."

"What? I didn't hear that."

I sighed with dread, glancing at my older brother again. I seriously felt like punching him so I wouldn't see that stupid smile of his, but it would probably fail. I never got to land a good blow on him.

Amy did, though...

"I love you... Shirl-bear," I forced out.

Jack snorted.

"Bye!" Shirley hung up.

When I put my phone down, Jack burst out laughing.

"Shirl-bear?!" He leaned on the door and slid down to the floor, clutching his stomach.

"Would you stop? It's not like you and Amelia are any better."

"What do you mean?"

I raised a brow. "'I love you, babe', 'I love you more, babe', 'You're the best boyfriend in the world, Jackie', 'You're the most beautiful girl in the world, Ameli-baby'." I gagged and made faces.

Jack chuckled and stepped further inside. "It's still better than Shirl-bear."

"No, it's not. What are you doing here?"

"Well, I heard you arguing with Shirley, so I wanted to see what the hot gossip was about."

"I wasn't arguing with-"

"Tom, I know when you guys are fighting."

I glared at him and pretended to look at my phone. He frowned at me, his arms crossing. He had that knit between his brows. He always frowned like that when it came to Shirley.

I raised a brow at him. "Did you come in here just to stare?" I said.

"Tom... listen, I know you don't want to hear this." He approached me. "But when I heard you talking to her, I couldn't help but notice a little... pattern."

"What pattern?" I frowned.

"She seems to expect you to... I don't know, solve everything. Like right now. She wanted you to force stop Diana from going to school. I mean... you could try and convince her, but like you said, it won't do anything."

"You really like eavesdropping on my conversations, don't you?"

"You raise your voice when you talk to her. The entire neighborhood heard you," he remarked.

"Quit exaggerating."

"She just tends to be really demanding, that's all," he continued. "And really, what is she so worried about? Diana being in school won't affect her."

"Well, it might. She's dating me," I pointed out.

"Still, people won't be focusing on her. All she has to do is distance herself and that's it. Everyone will be focusing on you... well, all of us."

I huffed and stood, distancing myself from him. "Stop telling me something I already know! I know all this, okay?! Everyone at school will be talking about me, about Harry, everyone. Everyone." I held up my phone. "You don't want Shirley blaming me or name-calling me? You think she's so demanding?" I tossed it to him. "Fine. You tell her. Tell her you'll do something about it. That way, she can stop being so 'demanding' towards me."

I slumped back in my bed. Jack picked up my phone. For a couple moments, we were silent.

"Okay, you know what, never mind." He tossed the phone back to me. "I wanted to have a calm conversation, but I guess that's not gonna happen." He turned to leave.

"No, you just came in here to bug me. Like you always have."

"I just wanted to-"

"Forget it." I returned to my phone.

He stared at me for a few more moments before leaving. My eyes lingered on the ceiling for a while, my sister's face swirling in my mind. I got off my bed and looked down the hall at Amy's room.

Amy's room. Not Diana's.

If she didn't change her mind... if she went to school with us... we'd have to do our best to make her leave.

Now that you see more of the brothers, what do you think of them? Have you known a Shirley in your life, whether romantically or not?