Most of the time we're a pretty unobservant lot -- us humans, I mean -- and that is especially true when it comes to noticing how the passage of time changes people. We just don't recognise how even those who are close to us alter, how they grow, how they age, how they develop. And the more time we're around them, the less we see.
Looking back now, I guess it was this observational blind-spot that was at the root of all that happened. In fact, I'm sure it was.
It all started during the summer before I went to university. I had taken a couple of years after my A levels to travel, party and generally see a bit of the world before returning to my studies, and I was taking a well-earned breather before I left for the uni. Billy, my brother, was eighteen, almost two years younger than me, and had just finished his own A levels. Our parents both work so we ended up spending quite bit of time alone at home, and it was kind of strange at first because in the previous two years I had hardly seen Billy because of my travelling and we were almost strangers.
Despite this strangeness, I still didn't really notice Billy. To me he was just my kid brother, the same as he'd always been, and the fact that he'd just bought his first motorbike didn't mean anything more to me than being a sign that his toys were getting bigger as he got older.
I just didn't see him as anything more than a boy who happened to be related to me -- and by 'boy', I mean kid.
We hadn't really had much to do with each other for so long that for the first two weeks of the holidays we barely spoke. Billy was off most days with his little gang of friends and newbie bikers, and I spent a lot of time on the phone to my friends and down at the mall where I spent more than just time choosing my university wardrobe.
Soon though, our various friends disappeared off on holidays abroad, or started jobs, or just generally moved on to other things, and Billy and I found ourselves at home at the same time. Before long we were bickering just as we'd done years before, and arguing about the most ridiculous things -- also just as we'd done years before. And yet, even as we got familiar with one another again, I still failed to notice that Billy really wasn't just a boy anymore.
So far during the holiday, the weather had been that of a typical English summer style -- in other words, wet and dreary -- but in the fourth week, the sun came blazing through. It lightened our moods wonderfully, and the bickering became a little more playful, a little less personal.
Billy, though, had always been mischievous and at times he could take things a little too far. What would start out as a well-intentioned joke or tease tended to develop into something meaner or just plain rude.
I should have been more aware of that, just as I should have been more observant about how Billy had grown. But I wasn't.
On the Wednesday afternoon I came back from the local store with a fresh supply of ice-cold sodas from their fridges and offered one to Billy who was sitting in the kitchen out of the heat. As I bent over and set the other cans onto the shelf in our own fridge, Billy pressed the freezing can onto the top of my arm. Naturally, I yelped and dropped the two cans I had in my hands. I straightened up and turned on him.
"Billy, you little shit! You know I hate that!"
"Sorry, sis, but I thought you needed to cool down a bit. You look hot."
"Of course I look hot. It's ninety degrees out there and I've just been and got us both cold drinks which you've now bounced all over the floor. And you can pick them up."
Billy shrugged, "Take it easy, sis. No need to get all bossy."
I snorted and took my own drink over to the back door. I popped the can and took a long swallow, the cola sending spears of ice into my brain, making me shiver deliciously in my little summer dress. I closed my eyes, basking in the heat of the sun, relishing the chill of the soda settling inside me. I sighed happily.
And then squealed as a pop close to my left ear was followed by a spray of icy cola across my face.
It took me a few seconds to get over the shock before I turned slowly and faced my little brother.
"You just have to take things too far, don't you? You're a total prick, Billy!"
"Well you still looked like you were overheating."
"Yeah, right! Look at this!" I run my fingers through my hair which was already becoming sticky, "Prick!"
"There's no need for-"
"There's every need you little shit. Your trouble is you've got no respect and you can't just have a little joke and let it be, can you?"
"Jeez you sound just like mum."
"I'll have you know I've got every right to. In case you've forgotten, I am the oldest and I can still handle you, no matter how old you get."
Billy gave one of his sly grins, "You reckon?"
That was the moment that it hit me. My little brother wasn't quite so little any more. And that grin wasn't the grin of a boy... Even, so I was still determined to assert the authority of my birth-right. "You can't intimidate me, Billy. You're not so big that I can't still tan your butt."
His laugh sent a strange shiver through me. It was the laugh of a mature male. A confident male.
