"So... do you want to talk about it?" Ellie asked after picking Oliver up from the mall on a Friday evening. He'd called her twenty minutes ago.
"No," he replied quietly while gazing out the window with a solemn expression on his plump face.
"Well, that look can only mean one thing: girl problems." She took a left turn as she drove them home. "I'm right, aren't I?"
Oliver glimpsed at her before he resumed staring absently out the window.
Ellie gave a sigh and lightly squeezed his knee in encouragement. "What happened?"
Oliver took a moment to gather his thoughts. His sister knew him too well to keep it from her. "There's this girl that... I really like, and Tommy had me convinced that..." He heaved a sigh as he again looked out the window. "I don't feel like talking about it."
Ellie squeezed his knee again, his dejected mood filling in the blanks in her head. "What did that little bitch say when you'd told her that?"
Oliver turned his head to her and gave a chuckle or two, to which Ellie added her cute, girly giggles. "I haven't told her, and she's not a bitch."
The blue in his sister's eyes soften, and her grip on the chubby, leather-clad wheel loosened again. "Well, if you haven't told her, then maybe she isn't after all." She brought the car to a halt at the stop sign and waited for the old lady with the cane to cross. "Then what happened? Why haven't you told her?"
"Because she doesn't like me."
"And how would you know if you—"
"She's into a buddy of mine. They were all over each other from the moment we met up with them."
Her head bobbed in empathy as she accelerated to the legal speeding limit. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah, whatever," he mumbled with slumped shoulders, his hands clasped in his lap. "I didn't really think she liked me," he said in a defeated voice seconds later.
"And why would you think that? Even if it turned out to be true?"
"Why? 'Cause she's... girls like her don't like guys like me."
"What, girls like her don't like smart, sensitive, and amazing guys like you? I find it hard to believe."
A bitter smirk curled the right corner of his lips at Ellie's consoling efforts. She didn't want to bring up the elephant in the room, and he appreciated it, especially when it was very unlike her, but in his current frame of mind, it was also irksome. "Yeah, I'm sure that's what girls care about: sensitive and... all that crap."
"It's not crap, and you'd be surprised."
"Ellie, I appreciate you trying, but we both know it's bull."
"And how do we know that exactly?"
"Well... take you for example: how many fat boyfriends have you had?"
Ellie moistened her lips as she was trying to think how to get away from that. They both knew he had her there. "For your information, I don't have a problem dating a guy who's overweight."
"Then why haven't you?"
"Because I've never been asked out by one."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's why," her brother retorted bitterly.
The blonde sighed. "Listen, Oliver, you're only 14. Your body is constantly changing, and—"
"Ellie, let's just drop it. Can we do that?"
She couldn't drop it, not before she made him feel better. "You wanna know something? I think you're an amazing kid; I really do, Oliver. So what if you're overweight and wearing"—her eyes swept over his attire in painful disapproval—"these clothes. You are beautiful on the inside. There are so many qualities in you that—"
"Beautiful on the inside?" He snorted. "That's basically saying: you're a fat fuck, and you're gonna die a virgin. As a former cheerleader, I have to say, you really suck at this, Ellie."
Their eyes met in a glance that seemed to stretch across centuries before they broke it off with a string of chuckles. Ellie always appreciated it about her little brother, when he'd call her out on her bullshit.
"Generally speaking, you wouldn't be wrong, that if a girl tells you that, it's... not good news, but it's not what I'm doing here. I do think that you're incredible, Oliver, and if that girl doesn't like you, then it simply means that she's not meant for you. There's gonna come a day when you'll meet the right girl, someone who will see what I see, and when that girl comes along, everything will fall into place. And much more importantly"—she squeezed his knee for the third time, and while cocking a shapely brow, shot him a sly smile—"you will not be a virgin anymore."
They guffawed at her quip.