Don’t get me wrong, I have always loved my little brother Sammy. He was always just sort of, I don’t know, a dork. I think that she came out of the womb with a certain social awkwardness and a unique ability to make himself invisible in plain sight. Sammy is a total nerd and always has been. I am not saying that to put him down. Like I said, I really do love my little brother. We never had that sort of torturous older sister/younger brother thing that you see on television and movies. I just want you to know what we are dealing with here.
So, this story I am going to tell you about my brother and I happened about two years ago. At the time I was 20 years old and a sophomore in college. My brother was 18 and a senior in high school. Not that he looked it. He was always painfully shrimpy and reaching the age of adulthood hadn’t changed that. I am not a tall girl, only around 5’5, but I was still taller than my brother at 5’3. On top of that he was string bean thin, probably only 110lbs. He had short brown hair and dark brown eyes. He had a handsome face, but it was a bit childish and he couldn’t even begin to grow facial hair. His skin was always very pale and he was incapable of tanning. Worst of all, he always wore really baggy clothes and slouched. He looked like a pouty kid more than a man just a few months short of college.
If you just looked at us, you’d never know that we are related. As I already stated, I am taller than my brother. I have very long light blonde hair and bright, wide blue eyes. I have thick pink lips and a pretty, oval face. The only thing I don’t like about my face is that I have slightly rotated eyeteeth, but some people tell me they look cute. Whatever. I have small, round breasts (34-B) and a flat stomach. I have hips slightly wider than my breasts, a toned butt, and shapely legs. On top of all that, I take after our mother and tan very easily. You wouldn’t think we were cousins, let alone brother and sister.
It all started on a Friday morning. It was in December, near the end of the first semester. I would be going home for Christmas break in a few weeks and classes were just starting to wind down before exams started. As I said, my brother was a senior in high school so he was deciding where he wanted to go to college. His applications were all due in early January, so he was really running out of time.
I went to a big public university. Very much a party school. Also very affordable. My brother was always much smarter than me and he wanted to go to some small liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere. It was prestigious and quiet, which suited my brother’s personality perfectly. Unfortunately it was also wildly expensive. My dad had called me on Thursday to tell me that he was sending my brother to my school. He wanted me to show my brother around and try to convince him that my school, or a similar school, would be a better fit for him. I knew that meant my dad didn’t want to pay for my brother’s prestigious choice.
I was not really excited about showing my brother around on a Friday night. I had plans, I’d been invited to a party and I wanted to dance (things that I would not be able to do with my sulking brother lingering around). But, when the man who is paying for your education (and giving you money for food and gas) asks you to do something, you have to suck it up and agree to it. So on Friday morning (a day I don’t have classes) I was at the train station in town, picking up my brother.
“What’s up nerd?” I asked when he sat down in the passenger seat next to me. He gave me a sad little smile and threw his duffel bag in the backseat.
“Hey Lynn,” he said, “Sorry dad is making you do this.” He looked almost embarrassed, like he knew that I had been bitching about him the entire drive to the train station. I smiled at him.
“Don’t be a doofus,” I said, “It’d be an honor to show you around.” And with that I kicked the car into gear and headed back towards campus. While we drove I asked my brother about school and about his extracurricular activities (he was president of a thousand socially suicidal clubs, but I tried not to give him a hard time about it). He gave me short, embarrassed answers, so I mostly let things dropped.
“New girlfriend or anything?” I asked finally, trying to make him talk. My brother has a hard time warming up to conversation, even with my parents or me. He gets shy around people he’s known his entire life. You have get him started, then he can almost manage a normal human conversation.
“No,” he said and he looked over at me with the most pathetic face I’d ever seen, “I have pretty much realized that that is never going to happen.” He sounded sad, but not in an acute way. He seemed… resigned. Like he really had given up on the opposite sex. My heart broke for him. He was so smart and he could be funny when he allowed himself to be. He could be cute if he dressed himself properly. There was no reason for him to give up. I felt like I was going to cry. I reached over and gave his hand a squeeze.
“Don’t think like that Sammy, you will have a beautiful girlfriend someday very soon. I know it. And someday you will get married and have an army of cute little nerdy children with glasses and pocket protectors,” I said. He laughed a little and I felt better, even though I was pretty sure I hadn’t convinced him of anything.
It was around ten in the morning when I parked my car outside of my dorm. I had begged my dad to let me move off campus for my sophomore year. I knew a bunch of people and could have stayed at any number of houses. But he said he didn’t like the things that happened at off-campus housing and said I would be in the dorms at least through my junior year. Like you can’t get drunk in a dorm or something! Sometimes, my dad is kind of dense.
Luckily, two girls that I knew, Adrienne and Carrie, were both on full-ride academic scholarships. Because they were on scholarship, they received a grant to pay for their student housing. They’d lose the grant if they moved off campus so they stayed in the dorms as well. Since we were friendly (if not friends) we got a suite together. The suite was on the fifth floor of a large brick building and it had four rooms. There was a living room with a small kitchen essentially in one corner, a bathroom with a slim shower stall, and then two bedrooms. We’d had a coin flip to start the year and I’d won. So I had a private room and Adrienne and Carrie shared the other.
We took Sammy’s duffel bag up to the dorm and dropped it in the living room. I’d already discussed it with Adrienne and Carrie, and they were cool with Sammy sleeping on the couch. When we came up, Adrienne and Carrie were sitting on the couch watching television.
“Hey Lynn” Adrienne said, “Is this the rug rat?” she pointed to my brother. He almost flinched away from her finger and Adrienne laughed. She was the boisterous and friendly roommate. She was very pretty with long black hair, grey eyes, and olive skin. She was tall and lithe with small breasts and pretty legs that she poured into tight jeans to show off her small, muscled butt.
“You’re giving him a complex,” Carrie said. She was the sweet and shy roommate. Not shy by my brother’s standard, but by normal human standards. Carrie was short and curvy with long auburn hair and green eyes. She was almost as pale as my brother, but she pulled it off better, like a Victorian-era lady or something.
“Yeah this is Sammy,” I said, throwing his bag on the floor, “Sammy this is Adrienne and this is Carrie.” He stared at them blankly. His lips moved a little, but he didn’t say anything.
“Nice to meet you,” Carrie said, finally. Adrienne smiled and nodded.
“Same to you,” My brother said in a squeaky little voice. Adrienne looked like she was about to make a joke, but I shook my head. She would think it was funny and wouldn’t mean to hurt, but any little teasing would crush Sammy. We stood awkwardly and quietly for a few moments. It was like Sammy was capable of bringing discomfort with him.
“So what are you guys doing today?” Adrienne asked finally.
“Oh you know, doing the tour thing. Taking him out to Florentine’s for lunch, not really sure exactly,” I said.
“What are you kids doing tonight?” Adrienne asked, “Are the Sampson children going to go wild on a Friday night at the state college?”
“No,” Sammy said and I was surprised, “I don’t much like parties.” Well that was the end of that. I was hoping to take him out, to loosen him up and make him see the opportunities that were available in college. No dice.
“Well Adrienne and I are staying in tonight. Habitat for Humanity in the morning. If you guys want to hang out with us this evening, that’s cool,” Carrie said. I thanked them and then dragged my brother out of the dorm. We might not be able to go to a party tonight, but I wasn’t going to let him hang out in his room all day. It wasn’t like he was at home.
As I promised I took my brother out to Florentine’s. It’s a surprisingly good, and inexpensive, Italian restaurant that is sort of a hangout for the students at my school. He looked sullen most of the time, but that was normal. He seemed to like the food. When we were done eating we checked out the things I knew he’d like. I showed him the library and the computer labs. We walked around the gardens (though they didn’t look great in the winter) and the portrait gallery. We even looked in some of the darkened classrooms and dining facilities. I kept him away from the things most people would want to see, the bars and the frat houses.