My Jealous Stepbrother

"Ryan," I murmured in a soft, tension-laden voice, capturing his attention. His eyes, met mine, but his innocent expression failed to deceive me. I knew he was hiding something. "Yes?" he replied, trying to look unconcerned, as if he had done nothing wrong. However, his evasiveness and the way he avoided my gaze made it clear that something wasn't right. I inhaled deeply, trying to remain calm as I fought the surge of emotions that swept over me. "Where are my clothes?" I asked, trying to control the mixture of anger in my voice.

His eyes widened as he gave me an overly expressive look, as if he had been caught in mischief. He avoided it again, diverting attention to anything but me. He even said it was a beautiful storm! Oh no, I thought to myself, knowing something

was wrong.

"Tell me."

"I don't know, Samantha," she replied in a voice that sounded too innocent to be believable.

My cheeks burned intensely and my hands tensed in anger. Without a second thought, I began throwing pillows and any object I could find toward Ryan, demanding that he leave my room. The flu was still affecting me, causing my sneezing to mingle with the roar of the storm outside.

"Get out of here Ryan, I don't want to see you!" I shouted. "How dare you, how dare you look at me naked?"

Ryan tried to defend himself, stammering apologies and explanations, but my fury was uncontrollable.

"I don't want to hear your excuses. Leave right now!"

"I swear I didn't see anything, Samantha," Ryan insisted with a pleading look in his eyes.

"I don't believe you!" His explanation was not enough to calm my distrust and feeling of invasion into my privacy. My anger was uncontrollable, and I was not willing to listen to his justifications.

"I closed my eyes while I was changing you. You were completely soaked. I couldn't leave you like that, I was so worried. I didn't want you to get worse because of my carelessness," he tried to explain, but I remained skeptical.

I threw my kleenex box next, pushing Ryan back until he finally left my room, closing the door behind him.

That didn't stop him, however, as he continued to speak to me from the other side, desperately trying to explain himself. "I swear on my mother I didn't see anything!" he said, as if that would fix everything.

Oh, what a bad time to mention family! I felt an even bigger wave of embarrassment hearing those words. "Go away!" I shouted, wishing he would just walk away and leave me alone.

How could I ever look him in the eye again?

I heard his footsteps walking away from the door, but frustration still consumed me. My sneezing mingled with all the sounds around me, both the raindrops that seemed to want to break everything and a pitiful attempt at an apology, I dropped onto the bed, covering my face with the pillows, wishing the earth would swallow me up.

The atmosphere became oppressive and the room seemed to enclose me in a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. The idea that Ryan had closed his eyes so he wouldn't see me naked stirred a mixture of relief and anger inside me. Was it such a bad idea to look a little? I also wasn't sure if I should believe him, if it was even possible that it was true.

The flu kept exhausting me and my body was shaking with fatigue but I didn't want to turn off my mind, I had too many things to think about even though I wanted not to.

As I sank into my sheets, not sure how much time had passed, I heard a faint hesitant knocking at the door. Of course, I knew who it was, but I had no intention of answering it. "Samantha," his voice uttered softly, but elicited no response from me. "Hey, I brought flu medicine," he continued to insist. "You need to take it before you get even worse..... You shouldn't have gone out knowing you weren't better yet. You had to wait a few more days."

Now he was scolding me? As much as I wanted to answer him, I decided to keep my lips sealed in cold silence. However, the sound of the door slowly opening reminded me that I had not locked it. I made no move and continued to apply the law of ice.

I could hear his cautious footsteps from under all the covers. There were too many, I used to have one on my bed and it was more than necessary but for some reason at this moment I had four more, it made me think that Ryan had covered me with all of them when I still didn't wake up.

"Good! I'll take the silly medicine."

I may have been convinced by his concerned tone of voice, but I refused to accept it in front of him. I was so weak.

"Here, the medicine you always take," Ryan said as he handed me a box of flu medicine along with a glass of cold water, he looked a little more relieved than I thought he would. "Emily would have understood if you couldn't get out." The cool liquid ran down my throat, soothing the dryness and appeasing the slight burning I felt from having been screaming. As the water quenched my thirst, I also felt my irritation begin to dissipate. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that I didn't see Emily, not even to talk back to her. Last time she behaved very badly with Zack and I still didn't know exactly why she didn't like me.

Suddenly I felt that something wasn't right. Something else.

Was this the medicine to take after eating? I remembered the words of my stepmother, who always warned us about the importance of taking it on a full stomach because of its potency and how fast it kicked in. However, I had only had iced coffee before that. Suddenly, I felt strange and a sense of drowsiness began to creep over me.

My thoughts clouded over, I looked at Ryan and the words escaped my lips helplessly. "You're cute," I told him, not quite understanding why I had said it. My mind felt fuzzy and my words seemed to come from a distant place. The room began to spin around me and I realized I was in big trouble.