Read Catch Me for Free Online Page B

of my room. I walk down the stairs and round the corner to the kitchen, pausing right before I get there when I hear my brother talking on the phone. His back is facing me, but I know he heard my loud heels clicking on the hardwood floor. I don’t want to purposely eavesdrop, but from the tone of his voice I know he’s speaking to my mother, and I’m curious about their conversation.
    “Yep. She’ll do great. I know. All right, Mom, I’ll talk to you later. Sure, I’ll tell her,” Hendrix says, turning around to face me as he hangs up. “Morning. Mom said to wish you good luck at work.”
    “Awesome,” I reply shortly.
    He exhales and runs his fingers through his wavy hair but doesn’t make any further comments on the topic as he hands me a coffee mug. “Did Nina sleep here? I heard you guys get in pretty late,” he says after a while.
    “Yeah, she decided she wanted to close down the little bar we went to in The Village,” I murmur distractedly as I sort through the cereal boxes in his pantry.
    “Hmm. Were you drinking?” he asks as nonchalantly as he can, but the edge in his voice makes me pause on the box of Fruit Loops and turn to face him. His caramel eyes are looking at me with both questions and concern and I wish he had no reason to do either.
    “No, Hen,” I respond, turning around to pull out the box of Frosted Flakes. “I don’t usually drink. But I can, you know? Drinking has never really been an issue for me.” It’s what I do after I’ve had the countless amount of drinks.
    “Yeah, but still. I’ve heard that any kind of addict is an addict,” he says, cringing as soon as the last word leaves his mouth.
    “It’s okay. We can talk about it,” I assure him. “And I’m not really an addict, Hen. I was going through a lot of shit.”
    “Still, Brooklyn …”
    “Hendrix. I’m not an addict.”
    “You went to rehab. You go to meetings a couple of times a year. You had a sponsor,” he says quickly, before I can cut him off.
    “I went to rehab because I was scared shitless. I go to meetings because I want to help others that may be in the same shoes I was in, and they’re not all meetings for addicts, you know that. And I had a sponsor because she and I understood each other and she helped me deal with a lot of my emotions,” I say calmly, getting the milk out of the fridge and sitting down to eat my breakfast as I explain myself.
    “You take medication,” he says, sitting on the barstool in front of me.
    “I haven’t in a year and that was for my depression, not for my supposed addiction. What the hell, Hendrix?”
    He’s starting to irritate the shit out of me. I’m trying to keep my cool, but it’s hard when I’m being given the third degree this early in the morning on a day that I’m already nervous about as it is. A nagging feeling tells me this has something to do with his conversation with my mother, but if I ask him and he confirms that, I will go ape shit, so I would rather not know.
    “Sorry. Sorry. I just worry, and for some reason it’s easier to worry about you when you’re on the other side of the country. I can pretend that you’re just sitting at home working on microphone designs every night and not out with friends at bars and stuff,” he says with a long exhale, running his hand over his hair again.
    “It’s fine. It’s just … it’s really early for this. I’m already freaking out about work and doing a good job and hoping people like me—not that it matters because either way I’ll be stuck there and now everyone is gonna think I’m only there because I’m your sister and I get everything handed to me on a silver platter—and it sucks because this isn’t even anything I wanted to do. I’ve never done this openly and for real, and now that I am, I’m thinking I might suck at it or maybe I’ve lost my touch and can’t find anybody good. I’m going to end up letting everybody down and Daddy’s going to think I suck and tell Mom