The Complete Like You Series by Jillian Liota

Author:Jillian Liota
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Love Is A Verb Books

As much as I love my brother, there’s something about visits with him that make me feel like I’ve literally let down everyone I know just by being me.

I think back to last night, when I was feeling so comfortable and confident in my skin, wishing I could go back. Though, maybe that was the wine talking?

I know if I ever hinted to Caleb that what he says to me makes me feel like my every action is a disappointment, he’d be mortified. But that doesn’t change the fact that his words have made me feel like my very presence in the world is a consistent drain on everyone else.

He hasn’t always been this way. When my mom was around, we were the three musketeers, always fighting against the consistent pull of my dad trying to drag us all down, reminding us of reality and using the word can’t all the time.

You can’t go to the beach.

You can’t skip school.

You can’t buy that.

But when my mom died, we became the two musketeers, and it’s hard to be an unstoppable duo when one of you is twelve and the other is a junior in college.

I tried to tell him at one point that we could be like Batman and Robin. I’d envisioned that motorcycle with the sidecar, and both of us decked out in costumes. He’d just laughed, practically patting me on the head, not taking me seriously.

He never takes me seriously.

At some point, things just… changed between us. At least when I was younger, he seemed to appreciate the things that made me different from everyone else. But as I got older, as more time passed, he started seeing the bold colors of my life as intrusive rather than beautiful.

A trait he can only have learned from our dad.

“Always with the bright colors, huh?” he says as I walk into his office and take a seat in front of his desk.

Like that comment. He said it with a smile, and I know he’s not being nasty. But I also know he prefers those bland colors that he wears as a professor. The navy, the brown, the beige. A deep burgundy tie against a white shirt is a bold day for him. Bright colors are for attention seekers, not people who put their nose to the grind.

To anyone else, it sounds like some good-natured ribbing between siblings. That’s probably what his teaching assistant thinks as she sits outside of his office and grades tests.

And maybe it is. Maybe I’m reading too much into it. Maybe I’ve spent the past few years worrying about what he thinks of me, so I’m unable to identify the difference between teasing and something else.

But it feels like the beginning of an attack on what makes me… me.

And each attack feels like another attempt to chip away at the person I enjoy being.

“That’s me,” I say, giving him a smile, trying to brush it off.

He rolls his eyes as he settles back into his own chair.

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