Brittany took a deep breath, inhaling the scent around her. She loved how the craft store in town smelled, loved how peaceful and tranquil it was within its aisles. Moving slowly, she admired all the different shades of paint. They had every color of the rainbow, but even more than that, colors she’d never even thought about before. She felt like a kid in a candy store. Brimming with excitement, she placed a few of the brighter colors into her shopping cart along with the artist’s notepad she’d already picked up.
This was Brittany’s weekly release – a time when she could just be herself and be soothed by the world around her. Every Tuesday morning, like clockwork, she’d cycle into town and stop by the large craft store beside the local Walmart. If the sun was shining, it made the trip even better. She’d linger among the aisles for as long as she could before eventually paying for her purchases and cycling back to the home she shared with her brother. The home they had inherited from their parents.
Checking her paint-splattered watch, Brittany sighed and pushed a loose strand of dark hair back behind her ear. She’d lingered in the store a little too long. If she didn’t leave in the next ten minutes, she risked her brother, Zack, getting in before she did, and that was never good.
With quick, urgent steps Brittany approached the checkout.
“Morning, Brittany,” Samantha, the kind-faced plump woman in the bright red smock grinned at her.
“Morning, Samantha,” Brittany smiled back. She wished that she had the luxury of time to partake in their usual morning pleasantries. She’d ask about Samantha’s children, and they’d discuss the weather from the week before. But time was no longer on Brittany’s side.
“I’m in kind of a hurry today,” Brittany told her apologetically as she frantically shoved her items into a paper bag.
“Oh, honey, don’t you go rushing now. ‘More haste, less speed,’ that’s what my mother always used to say.”
“Hopefully I’ll have some more time with you next week,” Brittany said as she handed the cashier her cash. She always had to pay in cash, never on a card. Any purchases made on a card could be monitored. But any cash she got her hands on was her own to spend as she liked. And she loved nothing more than buying art essentials. On sunny days, she’d just be out in the back yard beneath the weeping willow and waste the day away sketching in her notebook. Lately, it was the only thing which bought her any joy.
“You’re too young and pretty to let that brother of yours keep you locked up like a prisoner,” Samantha clucked, handing Brittany her receipt.
Every week Samantha would tell Brittany how she needed to get away from her brother, how she needed to live her own life. The whole town had an opinion on Brittany and her brother, the poor little kids over on Brixton Road, who lost their parents too young.
Brittany had been twelve when they died, Zack fifteen. He’d dropped out of school and taken any work he could find. He’d saved her from a life in the foster care system. And now that Brittany was eighteen she felt like she couldn’t just walk out on her brother when he’d scarified so much to keep her in school, to keep some normalcy in her life.
“I’m not a prisoner,” Brittany explained with a thin smile. “Zack is just…strict.”
“Hmm,” Samantha looked unimpressed but her anger melted into a warm smile none the less.
“Well, you have yourself a good day, Brittany. And make sure you pop by next Tuesday to see me.”
“I will,” Brittany promised as she headed for the door. Outside the sun was burning bright as she hurried over to her bike, pleased with her new purchases.
She pedaled hard and fast back through town, desperate to make it home before Zack did. He’d been out all night, working. She had no idea what he did. He went out on his motorbike at dusk and rarely returned before dawn. She assumed he did shift work somewhere, maybe at one of the factories just outside of town. He made good money. She was always finding wads of cash around the house and on occasion she slipped a twenty-dollar bill from the pile to fund her art habit, Zack didn’t even notice. It was as if he didn’t even know how much money he had.
Brittany cycled through the small town which had always been her home with the wind blowing through her short dark hair. The familiar streets looked shabbier than they had when she was a child. It was as if when her parents died the sheen had come off the entire world and she was forced to see things for what they really were.
Finally, Brittany reached Brixton Road, a street lined with small wooden bungalows, some in better condition than others. She remembered on bright mornings how her father would turn on the sprinklers and let Brittany and Zack dash beneath the spurts of water until they cooled down. Now the lawn outside their house was overgrown and thick with weeds. Zack was always promising to get out and mow it, but he never did. Their lawnmower had been pawned long ago, back when times were leaner.
Dismounting her bike, Brittany pushed it up towards the car porch and then stopped. Zack’s bright red motorcycle was parked next to the side of the house, heat still radiating from the engine and causing the air to bend.
“Dammit,” Brittany cursed under her breath. She was too late. She’d failed to beat her brother home. She considered hiding her shopping in a nearby bush. The bag was in her hand and she was about to stoop down and conceal it when the mesh door of the house clattered open revealing Zack behind it. Brittany instantly straightened and remained frozen before him, like a deer caught in headlights.
“Where the hell have you been?” he snarled angrily at her. Brittany could feel eyes upon her as neighbors pulled back their curtains in the hope of witnessing a heated exchange. She refused to give them such a show. Pushing back her shoulders, she confidently approached the house and pushed past Zack.
Inside, the house was dark and cool, thanks to the ceiling fan which was forever rotating above the small lounge. They’d once had a proper air conditioning system but that, like the lawn mower, had been pawned long ago.
“I said where have you been?” Zack reached for her shoulder and spun her around to face him.
Like his sister, he had dark hair and bright blue eyes which were vivid even in the darkness of the house. But he stood a good foot taller than Brittany, and he looked down upon her now with anger distorting his chiseled, handsome features. Brittany was about to respond when she noticed the dark bruise clouding around his left eye.
“Hey, what happened?” she pointed towards it and Zack flinched. “You get in an accident at work?”
“Yeah,” he replied gruffly, turning away so that she could no longer see the bruise. “A box fell on me.”
“Want me to take a look at it?”
“No!”
“Seriously, Zack,” Brittany strode away from him and slung her shopping bag down onto the sofa.
“You’re always getting hurt at work. Last week it was that cut on your hand, before that you broke a rib. I swear you should just take out a lawsuit against your employer. No job should be this hazardous.”
“Just drop it,” Zack ordered briskly. “Where were you?”
He was back on his mission of interrogation.
“I went shopping,” Brittany sighed. It was hardly as if she’d committed some terrible crime, which was how Zack was trying to make her feel.
“Shopping?” he echoed incredulously.
“Yes, shopping,” Brittany gestured angrily at the bag containing her art supplies. “I needed a few things so I cycled into town. I don’t see why you’re getting so worked up about it.”
“You’re supposed to stay at home,” Zack declared through clenched teeth. “How many times, Brittany? You stay here!”
“Like a prisoner?” Brittany shrieked, clutching her bag tightly against her chest. Suddenly she wanted to be as far away from Zack as possible, which meant either retreating to the yard or her small bedroom. She chose the yard.
She started stomping through the open plan living room and kitchen towards the sliding doors, which led out into the modest backyard. Here the lawn was more tamed than the front yard thanks to Brittany’s backbreaking efforts with some garden shears she found in the garage. She lacked the stamina to do both lawns.
“Brittany!” Zack boomed her name with such force that some of the glasses in a nearby cabinet shook.
“Zack,” she sighed as her shoulders slumped, and she turned back, one hand resting on the handle for the sliding doors.
“I love you. I love everything you’ve done for me. But I’m eighteen, it’s about time I started having some sort of life.”
“Don’t I care for you?” Zack demanded angrily. “Don’t I buy you food, keep a roof over your head?”
“Yes,” Brittany admitted. “But I’m not a pet dog. I need more than food and shelter. You should let me go out and find a job, that way we’re both taking care of the house, and you’re not shouldering the burden alone.”
“I’m managing just fine!”
“Are you?” Brittany cried heatedly. “Because you’re always beaten up and in the foulest of moods.”
“You’re being ungrateful!” Zack barked. “Do you have any idea the lengths I go to in order to keep us safe?”
“Safe?” Brittany repeated the word, frowning. “Safe from what?”
Zack sighed in frustration and kicked at the sofa.
“Safe from what?” Brittany repeated. In recent years, Zack seemed to be scared of his own shadow. Each time the doorbell chimed or the phone rang he jumped ten feet in the air and went as white as a ghost. The front door was covered in a dozen different bolts and locks, same for the back. Zack became obsessed with securing the home as though he feared that there was going to be an imminent zombie apocalypse that only he knew about.
“Just…” Zack ran his hands through his dark hair. He smelled of petrol and cigar smoke. Brittany was becoming increasingly determined to follow him to work one night and see what kind of a factory he was actually working at.
“Just trust me,” he eventually conceded. “I’ve always looked out for us, haven’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Then just trust me.”
“Trust goes both ways you know,” Brittany told him as she yanked open the sliding doors. The dense heat of the day came tumbling in around her, challenging the overhead fan which continued to spin in its never-ending orbit.
She stepped outside and breathed in the hot, clean air. Behind her, she heard a door slam as Zack finally abandoned the argument to go and lick his wounds. Brittany failed to understand how he could worry about her so much. Sure, they lived in a slightly dangerous part of town, but nowhere was without the risk of petty crime. She was basically an adult now, and she couldn’t go on with Zack insisting on treating her like a child.
Brittany lay her head against the thick trunk of the willow tree in the yard and reached into her bag for her new sketch pad and paints. She took a deep breath and let her mind clear. And then she started to draw. She drew ornate skulls adorned with flowers and jewels, she drew magical fairies who danced across the garden on luminous wings. She filled pages and pages with her drawings, and she only stopped when a shadow spread across the page. Squinting up against the sun she saw Zack standing above her, holding a fresh glass of iced tea. Condensation clung to the glass as the ice cubes swirled noisily within the amber liquid.
“I thought you might want this,” he handed it to her. “Especially if you’re going to insist on spending the day outside.”
“Thanks,” Brittany smiled up at him in gratitude.
“I’m heading to bed for a bit,” Zack told her. Dark circles had blended with his blooming bruise to make his eyes appear hooded and sinister.
“Promise me you’ll behave while I rest?”
“I promise,” Brittany told him sweetly. “And I’ll even stick a pizza in the oven for when you wake up.”
“Thanks, sis,” Zack sauntered back towards the house, his shoulders slumped. Brittany watched him with a heavy heart. She knew that she couldn’t let him keep supporting them both. Whether he liked it or not, it was high time she got a job of her own and started paying her way.