chapter 22

Amy pushed open the door of her London flat, eager to remove her heels after another long day at work spent barely suppressing a grimace of discomfort while surrounded by the relentless click-clack of the footsteps of graceful women who seemed to take everything in their effortless stride.

She was flipping through a stack of mail - junk mostly, as usual - when she stumbled over a pair of sneakers that had been left carelessly strewn across her hall. She gave a little cry of annoyance and cursed under her breath as she kicked her brother's shoes out of the way and bent down to rub her ankle.

Amy had been living alone since she and Chloe had went their separate ways after graduation and, much as she sometimes missed seeing her best friend every day, she didn't miss sharing her space with another person. Having her younger brother staying with her, even if just for a short visit, felt like an intrusion on her personal space that she could happily live without.

Her mom had phoned her a few months previous, telling her that Daniel was JUST DESPERATE to go to London Comic Con and how he would be SO GRATEFUL if Amy would let him stay with her. It had only required the most grudging noises of consent for her mother to book the flights and now her flat had been taken over for two weeks ("Those flights are so expensive it would be silly to spend so much on just a couple of days and Daniel has never been to England before - why not show him the sights?" her mom had reasoned) by a guy she had little in common with and had no idea how to entertain. She wasn't proud that after the first week together she had spent much of her time hiding out at work but she suspected that Daniel wasn't hot on the idea of spending any time with her either. When she had dutifully taken him to the convention he had only rolled his eyes and said he wasn't going to get excited about waiting in line for two hours to meet William Shatner. It would seem that comic conventions were just one of many things that her brother believed were bigger, and therefore better, in America. She quickly realised that Mrs Miller - hardly the wily master of subtlety and scheming that she seemed to think she was - had set the whole thing up as yet another ruse to force the reluctant siblings together.

She could already hear the TV blaring from the hall. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door to the living room. The sheer size of him still shocked her as she took in the sight of Daniel: her whale of a brother beached on the couch, he didn't even seem to register her presence as his glassy eyes were glued to the TV screen while he shovelled nachos from a bowl resting on his mountain of a belly into his mouth as if on auto-pilot. On the coffee table was a scene uncomfortably reminiscent of her past binges, strewn with all the forbidden foods that she would never normally allow in her home anymore and took great pains to avoid.

Daniel, like Amy, had always been a chubby kid but while she had ballooned into obesity in her teenage years, he had remained only soft and pudgy. Since she had left home she had noticed him steadily gaining more weight while she had shrank down but it felt like in the past year he had really blown up. It was as if he had done nothing but eat since graduating high school, she was sure that he must have eclipsed her highest weight and was heading for 400 lbs at an alarming rate.

"Hi," she said.

"Hey," he said, barely looking away from his TV show. He picked up a slice of pizza and folded it in half as if he couldn't cram it into his mouth fast enough.

"You ordered pizza? We're supposed to be going out for dinner with Chloe. Remember?"

"That's tonight?" he shrugged. "Sorry, I got hungry and wasn't sure when you'd be home. Anyway, I'm sure I'll find some space for dinner too."

"What're you watching?"

"Nothing you'd be interested in," he muttered and then seemed to look a little guilty. He turned to Amy, still lingering awkwardly in the doorway, and gave her a slight peace offering of a smile. "I changed the region on your Netflix so you can watch more American shows."

"OK..."

" ;You're welcome, by the way," he continued. "I also noticed that your laptop is running pretty slow so I defragged it for you and deleted some of the programs that you don't use. It's still pretty dated though, there are all sorts of pressure sensitive tablets and stuff now that would be better for design that just a laptop and photoshop. I could help you find one that would be better for you to do your work on if you want."

"My laptop is password protected. How did you even...?"

"It was pretty easy to guess. You should think about changing it."

She watched him crack open a can of soda and take a big slurp before putting it down without a coaster. She saw the beads of condensation creeping down to the surface of the coffee table she had spent a stupid amount of money on.

"Everything is fine the way it is. Just leave my stuff alone," she felt embarrassed at the sound of her own voice coming out as high and whiny as a child's. She could feel her annoyance bubbling over into anger until she couldn't contain it. "And would it kill you to pick up after yourself while you're here? I'm not mom. I shouldn't have to come home from work and waste my time cleaning up your mess."

"You're right, you're not mom," he said quietly. His hangdog expression emphasised by the way his face sank into the bulbous second chin that had taken over his neck. "She would never speak to me that way."

"That's because mom won't say anything to you even when you need to hear it. Play video games all day instead of studying and get mediocre grades even though you're smart? Fine. Don't apply for any colleges. Great. Don't want to do anything with your life other than living with mom and working part time at the comic book store? No problem."

She could feel herself trembling as the relief of releasing those ugly thoughts that had been festering inside of her was instantly replaced with regret. To her surprise she didn't see hurt in Daniel's face, instead there was something like satisfaction.

"Wow. That's the closest you've come to actually saying it."

"What are you talking about?"

"You think you're better than us now. What? Just because you're not fat anymore?" he said. "It's so obvious. Do you think mom doesn't notice you avoiding her phone calls or the way you almost never visit and when you do it's like you can't get away fast enough? Well, spare me your lectures because I don't want to be anything like you."

"Danny..." she said weakly.

She wanted to tell him that it wasn't like that at all but how could be make him understand that the reason she never wanted to go home was because the place was bound up in her mind with a life that she wanted to forget and parts of herself that she wanted to leave behind. The part that felt helpless and out of control. The part that was unhappy. The part that was weak.

"You left and you never came back," Daniel said coldly.

She felt like all the wind had been knocked out of her, like suddenly it was a struggle to breath, never mind form words. The sound of the front door opening and slamming shut saved her. Sometimes she regretted giving Chloe a key but this was not one of those occasions.

"God, I'm starving," Chloe declared, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room. She grabbed a bag of M&M's that had somehow eluded Daniel's belly and popped a handful into her mouth, their sugar shells almost as shiny and brightly coloured as the nail polish on her carefully manicured fingers. "Where are we going for dinner."

"Roux on Parliament Square."

"That's not really going to help with the starving," Chloe said, crunching another handful of the chocolates. "But at least it will be the most exquisite two bites of food I've ever eaten."

"I guess so," Amy said. She didn't really know much about London restaurants, the place had just been recommended to her by a guy in her office who was a bit of a food and wine buff.

"Is that what you're wearing?"

"No, I only just got home and I... got a little distracted," she cast a guilty look towards Daniel but he had turned his attention back towards his TV show.

"Well, you better hurry. I know how time consuming it can be choosing between the little black dress or the little black dress."

"You know what they say: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication," Amy laughed, beginning to feel a little more at ease. She turned back to Daniel, allowing herself to believe for half a second that she might be able to fix things between them or at least show him that she wasn't as bad as he thought she was. "What about you, Daniel? Are you coming?"

"Nah, you two go on without me," he said without even glancing in her direction.

Half an hour later Amy and Chloe were about to leave when Daniel came shuffling towards them, he had only thrown a jacket over the stained and crumpled clothes he had been wearing previously.

"I thought you weren't coming?" Chloe said.

"Guess I'm hungry after all," Daniel said and gave his belly, jutting out from the jacket that he was clearly no longer able to button up, a little pat. "Maybe if I have one of everything on the menu it might fill me up."

Chloe laughed. "Sounds like a plan."

"It's a fine dining restaurant. You can't go dressed like that," Amy blurted out.

God, what was wrong with her? Why did she have to say that? Was she really determined to confirm every bad thing he thought about her? But still she couldn't take her eyes off a greasy stain left by some junk food or another on his creased shirt.

"I don't have anything formal that still fits," he looked a little sheepish but his voice was defiant.

"I'm sure it won't matter," Chloe said. "Anyway, if we don't leave now we're going to miss our reservation and then it really won't matter what anyone is wearing."