BIAW - Day 5

This isn't as bad as NaNoWriMo - I only have to suffer through two more days. And this story is zinging. Maybe because this is the first time I've tried a sequel, so I know most of the characters already - although I never knew Neill lived with his older brother. Or maybe because I'm doing 1st person again. My last 1st person POV novel zinged too. Anyway, today I worked on the scene where Neill confronts his brother about a possible affair with his teacher. As usual, it's all about Neill - which is as it should be - he's the hero and he's sixteen. All this is leading up to the moment they find the teacher dead, with his brother as the prime murder suspect.
Kalif’s hands tremble. “I haven’t felt like this since the night mom and dad died.” He heaves a sigh and turns to look at me. “Relax, I’m not repeating that stupidity again. But at a time like this I almost wish I were still a drinking man.”

“Are you having an affair with my teacher?”

The words hang in the air between me and my brother. I know I’ve crossed into a world I never wanted to enter.

I’m expecting him to swear, hit me, throw things.

Anything but the look of fear that tightens his jaw. “No.” He lifts his hands in a helpless gesture of surrender. “Not now.”

“But you did.”

Whatever he’s feeling it’s more than fear. Something moves in the back of my brother’s eyes. I could swear he wants to say more. I think if I were older he would. I think he wants to confess. But not to his kid brother.

“It was a long time ago.”

“Before or after you got married?” I say as I jump to my feet and run up the stairs to my room. I thought their marriage was tight. Proof love was possible. I know without some miracle I’ll never be married. I may find a partner willing to be with me no matter what people say. Maybe we’ll live together, have a civil contract and one of those civil ceremonies and try pretending it’s the same thing. But marriage, real marriage, would require a miracle.

If real love takes a miracle too, I am so screwed.

And not in a nice way.