A Lament for The Lost

I’m not crazy. But I couldn’t deny that I’d gotten close. I’d say I had a solid year left before I started making tinfoil hats and yelling at mushrooms in my backyard. Yeah. Twenty years locked in that house would do it.

I had several months before my twentieth birthday, but that mattered little to me. Nineteen years of being a prisoner in my own home had made my brain go cuckoo bananas. I only ever interacted with my parents, my brother Phin, and his girlfriend, Juliet. And I only saw her when he happened to bring Juliet by.

My parents loved me. I knew they did. Why else would they have done all of this? I had been homeschooled my whole life while my little brother had been allowed to go to public school, leave the house, and have freedoms that I hadn’t had.

They only let me out of the house once in a blue moon. Like now, for Phin and Juliet’s high school graduation. The happy couple wanted to do something small, so we went out to eat.

I tried to distance myself from my brother and his girlfriend, but mostly Juliet. It made me twitchy when she looked my way. Something about the smile she flashed felt off. Too bright. Too perfect. Too much like she’d gotten to grow up in the way she wanted. Maybe I shouldn’t have begrudged her that.

“More cake, babe?” she asked my brother.

Juliet held her fork to Phin’s mouth and he ate right out of her hand. Maybe it was better that I’d never had a boyfriend if people found stuff like that cute.

“Thank you.” My brother smiled with a full mouth.

Juliet shamelessly had her feet up on his lap and he had his hand on her legs. She didn’t have much shame on a normal day. She looked stunning and she knew it. She wore short shorts and a loose tank top. Her dark blonde hair hung down to the middle of her back, and her blue eyes popped against her almost sun-kissed skin. She stood two inches taller than me and six shorter than my brother, putting her at five-five.

I had dark, reddish-black and wavy— almost curly— hair that fell to my hips. My eyes were such a dark blue that they looked black in some lights. I hung on to seven pounds of baby fat. Maybe ten. Fifteen… I blamed never getting to leave the house. Being heavier gave me curves and a round face. My skin was a ghostly white, like my dad’s. I took after him and Phin took after Mom. They had both grown up as orphans, so we didn’t know their exact lineage. Dad had Chinese features, though, and Mom had Latina blood.

If someone didn’t know any better, they wouldn’t have been able to tell Phin and I were siblings. His medium brown mop-top and lanky body had apparently pulled Juliet in. That and the evergreen eyes.

I finished off the last of my cake and shrank back into my seat as the waiter returned.

“Can I get you anything else?” he asked my father.

“Just the check.” He smiled and the man left.

I sat back up when the waiter had left. As a general rule, I didn’t make eye contact with people. I couldn’t really talk to anyone but my family. Phin had had to order for me the first time the waiter had come around.

“You excited about ASU in the fall?” Mom asked Juliet while we waited for the check.

“Yup.” She smiled. “Phin and I are gonna go apartment hunting next week. You wanna come, Willow?”