It was the fourth week of school, second week of September, a Tuesday night. I was back in The Box, sitting backwards in my chair like my mom did when she was working at home, leaning my chin on my arms, which were resting on the top of the chair’s back.

My mom was calling out to the band because of one thing or another when she paused.

“Wait, where’s Eric?” she asked, her brow furrowing into a frown.

“Uh…” one of the girls carrying a giant bass drum called out, “he quit…”

“What?” my mom called out before lowering the microphone and turning to my uncle. “Why wasn’t I notified? He’s our center snare!”

“Haven’t you received the email?” Uncle James said.

My mom yanked her phone out of her back pocket and frantically scrolled and tapped her way to her email app. Her frown deepened.

“Damnit, this fucking school system…!” she hissed under her breath as she locked her phone and shoved it back into her pocket. “I thought I got the problem fixed, but I guess not.”

Sometime last year, the school had somehow locked her out of their system and she didn’t receive any emails. It was a pain in her ass, I remembered, but we all thought it had been sorted out.

But then my mom turned to me.

“Lissie,” she said, her eyes wide and serious, “can you fill in for Eric today?”

“What the-!” I practically shouted. “Me?”

“Yes, honey,” she said, a glint of pride shining in her eyes. “I know you memorized the show already, as well as everyone’s dots.”

I narrowed my eyes. I couldn’t lie to my mom. She already knew about my shockingly strong memory. So now it was just up to my quick thinking to get me out of this.

“I have homework,” I said instinctively.

“You finished it in class,” my mom countered.

Damnit, how’d she know?

“I’m tired from basketball,” I said, barely taking a heartbeat of hesitation.

“You didn’t have practice today because the coach is sick.”

Fuck.

“I’m not wearing the right shoes.”

“You always wear the same twenty dollar tennis shoes no matter how much your mama tries to convince you to wear something new.”

Fuck, fuck.

My eyes narrowed more as we played this game of wits.

“I don’t know how to march.”

“You were at every day of band camp and you’re very good at learning physical tricks.”

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

I slid my teeth sideways to run my upper front teeth against my lower canines, watching as my mom’s lips tilted upwards into a sly grin. I always did this when I knew I lost, and she knew.

“Fine,” I bit out, standing from the chair and stalking out of the room. “But I’m taking the good snare and I’m eating the last donut when we get home!”

I wasn’t going to do this without some sort of reward.

I heard her tinkling laughter from behind me as I stomped across the stadium. The entire band parted when I stomped through them, giving me varying glances of confusion and shock.

It took me another fifteen minutes to lift a snare drum onto my shoulders, grab a suitable pair of sticks, shove a pair of black foam earplugs into my ears, and stalk back to the field. If I was gonna be playing head snare in the middle of the drumline, I sure as hell wasn’t going to let myself go deaf.

When I eventually fell into Eric’s dot (my mom was right, I did memorize it), I snapped a loud pattern out on the snare. Everyone within a good twelve-foot radius of me flinched from the noise, including the other members of the band’s battery.

“HAPPY!” I shouted up at the box, throwing my arms out angrily.

“Very!” my mom’s voice called out from the speakers.

My upper lip curled as I sheathed the drumsticks in my hands back into their little pouches.

“Motherfucking…” I grumbled under my breath, drawing a few wary side-eye glances, as my mom started speaking again.

“Okay, now that we fixed that problem,” she said joyously, “let’s do a rep of the first production, no metronome!”

I could see that at least half the band, including the entire drumline, was itching to raise their hands and question whether I was qualified to fill in the role of head snare. But they didn’t say a thing because if my mom was anything, she was proficient. She never did something unless she knew it would work out perfectly, and they knew this. So they all kept quiet and the drum major started conducting.

I slipped into the show like it was an old sweater, easy and familiar even though I’ve never participated in a band let alone this show before.

Everyone’s shock was practically palpable as I tapped out the first snare drum part and crab walked my way around the field.

Marching styles were quite peculiar. There was straight leg marching, bent leg marching, side marching (which were called slides), back marching, and literally everything in between.

The special thing about the drumline (the group of band students that played the drums, also known as battery) was that we had to march like a crab when going sideways because we couldn’t disturb our drums. That, and we always went toe first instead of heel first.

And unfortunately, my mom was right. I was pretty good at learning new physical tricks and such. I learned how to twirl a pencil three different ways in the span of a week, and she knew this.

When we finished with the full run, my mom was pleased enough to give the band a ten minute water break.

Kamilla immediately plopped her quad off, darted to my side, and started talking.

“So does this mean you’re joining band?” she asked cheerfully.

“Do I have a choice?” I asked scathingly in reply.

“Nope!” she said happily, skipping towards where she must have left her bag.

I rolled my eyes but followed her nonetheless. I had to bite my lip to keep myself from letting a fond smile show.

That was how I found myself unwillingly a part of my high school’s marching band. The upside to being the band director’s daughter, though, was that I didn’t have to go to the actual class during the day. I was really lucky because I actually really enjoyed my photography class; the only downside of photography was the fact that Zephyr was in the same class.

We also had literature together, which got quickly more irritating the more he tried to partner with me. But maybe Kamilla was starting to influence me because I was actually talking more and more with the irritating athlete.

It was about a week after my mom had forced me to join the band that I was partnered with Zephyr for an English project. I didn’t really have a choice in the matter, but at least we were both overachievers who would produce an amazing project.

The next day, I complained about him to Kamilla.

“I don’t know why he’s so insistent!” I said as I forcibly snapped open the container holding my sandwich. “There’s literally thirty other students that he could partner with! Why me? In math, in English, in photo! M’dude is everywhere!”

“Amaryllis?” Kamilla said quietly, glancing behind me, but I was too fired up to notice.

“Like, what? He’s popular, does he need to partner with the weird kid?” I said, picking up my sandwich. “Why me?”

“Ahem” Kamilla coughed, looking pointedly behind me as I prepared to take a bite of my sandwich.

My brow furrowed and I was right about to turn around to see who or what she was looking at when I heard a familiar voice.

“Hey, partner!” I nearly choked on the bite I had just taken from my sandwich. “So this is where you sit!”

Kamilla looked at me wearily. “I tried to tell you,” she whispered before glancing back up at Zephyr.

I sighed before turning to face him as he sauntered his merry way over to us.

“Can I sit with you guys?” he asked, hoisting his bag higher up his shoulder.

“Why?” I asked. Under the table, Kamilla kicked me in the shin. I winced and turned to her, mouthing, “What?”

“Be nice,” she mouthed back.

I rolled my eyes and turned to face Zephyr again. “What about your friends?” I asked, trying my hardest not to sound too cold. “Won’t they miss you?”

I don’t think I succeeded in keeping the sarcastic chill from my tone, but Zephyr didn’t mind. He was used to it.

“Eh, they’re so loud, they won’t even notice I’m gone,” he said dismissively. “So, can I sit with you?”

I eyed him up and down before glancing over at Kamilla.

What should I say? I asked her with my eyes.

You’re choice, she said with a shrug of her shoulders, but I could see that she was biting back a small smile.

I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“Yeah, alright,” I said impassively. In a mutter, I added, “Not like I could stop you.”

He laughed and came to sit on one of the empty benches at the circular table we were sitting, on my left and opposite Kamilla.

It wasn’t like I wanted to say ‘yes’, but once I did, I couldn’t take it back. He continued to sit with us at lunch every day, and all of a sudden, one became two became three.

About a week after Zephyr had more forcefully inserted himself into my life, my little brother found me in my room.

I didn’t see or hear him come in, but I felt his presence behind me as I went through my math homework, checking every question.

I swiveled around in my chair to face him, tucking my pencil behind my ear.

My little brother was growing alarmingly fast, even though he was still only ten. He was still shorter than I was by at least two heads, but I could remember back when he was a baby.

He had a book tucked under one arm and a cup of lemonade in the other that he was taking a long sip from. He was still in his pajamas, seeing that it was Sunday; I was, too, in an old gray hoodie and checkered sweatpants in matching grays.

“Yes?” I asked, leaning back in my chair to raise an eyebrow at him.

He stopped his sip and swallowed, tipping his head to the side as he stared into my eyes. It was moments like these where he made me doubt whether or not he could actually read minds.

After a moment of prolonged eye contact, however, he set his lemonade and his book on my bedside table before pulling a stool under himself to sit.

“You’re different,” he said quietly, gazing up at me with his wide, piercing eyes.

“And you’re weird,” I said dismissively, turning back to my homework.

“While that is true,” he said, a smile audible in his voice, “you are avoiding my question.”

“You asked no question,” I replied.

“I implied one,” he said simply.

“And what, pray tell, is this ‘implied question’?” I asked him.

At this point, the math in front of my eyes might as well have been upside down and backwards for all the sense it made. But I still didn’t look up because if I looked up, his x-ray eyes would find all the things I was hiding. And I really couldn’t have that.

“Why, tell pray, are you different?” he asked.

“Ah, now see,” I said, leaning back in my chair and slipping my pencil back around my ear to touch the tips of my fingers together, addressing the border around the edge of the ceiling that met with the wall, “that, my dearest baby brother, is a question.”

“And what, pray tell, is your answer?” Ben asked me, throwing my words back at me.

“My answer, tell pray,” I said, repeating his own words back at him, “is nothing.”

“Nothing?” he asked. “As in, you have no answer? Or as in, you have no answer to give?”

“Is there a difference?” I asked him, finally tilting my head to the side to appraise him from my peripherals.

“Of course,” he said with a nod, his eyes twinkling now that he had my fullest attention. “If you have no answer, then you don’t know. If you have no answer to give, then you know but refuse to acknowledge. So which, my dearest oldest sister, is your answer?”

“My answer…” I said, debating my choices as I dragged out my words, “…is that there is no difference for you to be interrogating me on.”

“I’m hardly interrogating you, dearest oldest sister,” he said, batting his eyelashes at me. “I’m merely asking about something in your life, like a good brother!”

“And I, dearest baby brother,” I said, turning my chair around to fully face him as I leaned forward to rest my chin in my hands and my elbows on my knees, “am simply giving the answer to the question you have raised.”

“Oh, but,” he said slyly, “are you?”

“Are you?” I asked back.

It was silent for a moment, not awkward but charged with tension all the same. A staring contest. A challenge; who’ll break first?

He did.

“Fine,” Ben said, crossing his arms and leaning back. “Touche.”

“Merci,” I replied, smirking.

“I concede and admit that I was interrogating you.” He raised his hands in mock surrender, bowing his head to me gently. I gave a single nod of approval, but before I could turn back to my homework, he continued. “Now, your turn.”

Years ago, we made a game called Touche. When one of us wanted something from the other, the banter and staring contest ensued until someone surrendered with the word, “touche,” to which the other would reply with the French word for ‘thank you’.

But now he was twisting the rules and asking me to surrender after he did, even if he was right.

“You’re breaking the rules,” I told him, my eyes narrowing.

“More like bending them,” he said with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders.

My eyes narrowed further, but all of this would be useless anyway. This was Ben, my baby brother, I was talking to. The sneaky little child always knew how to figure everything out.

“Fine, Rule Breaker-”

“Rule-Bender!” my baby brother interjected enthusiastically.

“Rule-Bender,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “I became friends with Kamilla.”

“Oh, yeah, I know about her,” Ben said dismissively, much to my surprise. “She’s blonde, very bubbly, the one I said was a good person.”

I blinked at him, shocked. “Wh-? How’d you know?”

He shrugged noncommittally again. “Mom and Mama were talking about it a little while ago. So what’s new?”

“I guess what you’re really asking is who’s new, right?” He nodded, so I sighed. “Alright, then. Zephyr.”

“Ooh, who’s Zephyr?” Ben asked, leaning forward with his chin in his hand like one of the boy-crazy teenage girls at my school.

I scoffed and gave him an eye roll before continuing.

“He’s in three of my classes,” I told him, leaning back in my  chair. “He’s smart, I guess, and so optimistic that it’s annoying. I guess he’s my friend now? I don’t know, he’s sitting with us at lunch now, and I guess he’s fun to talk to…”

Now it was my turn to give a shrug, but it was much more confused than Ben’s had been.

“Hm…” Ben said wonderingly. “Well… I don’t really know him, but if he’s anything like Kamilla, I’m sure he’ll be a good friend.” Then his expression turned dark. “But if he hurts you, I’mma kill him.”

I snorted. “With what resources?”

He thought about it. “Understandable. I’ll have Mom fail him. Ooh, and I’ll have Mama give him a lot of shots.”

I snorted again before chuckling. I sighed.

“Okay, I really do have to get my homework done,” I told him with a wry smile.

“I thought you finished it all yesterday?” he asked as he stood from his stool and grabbed both his book and his lemonade from my bedside table.

“Oh, I did,” I said, turning back to my math and untucking the pencil from behind my ear.

“Then what’re you doing?” he asked as he reopened the door to my room.

“Checking my answers,” I told him, looking up as I flipped a page. “What else?” He stared at me blankly before laughing. “What?” I asked him, confused.

“You’re ridiculous,” he said, chuckling as he left my room.