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the half-moon that I could see the previous owner’s metal swing set. One of the three swings was swaying back and forth as if someone had just jumped from it. You’re being paranoid, I told myself.
    I shook my head and walked to the kitchen to get a drink but couldn’t find any clean glasses. They were all piled up in the sink along with the rest of our dirty dishes. This is getting ridiculous. I turned on the faucet and waited for the water to get hot while I unloaded the dishwasher. By the time I was almost done loading, Jake finally woke up.
    “Could you be a little louder?” he said half-intelligibly through a yawn. His worn Levi’s had a big grease stain on the thigh and his wrinkly red shirt looked like crepe paper. He moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a gallon of milk, drinking it straight from the plastic jug.
    “Can you not do that?” I asked.
    He lowered the jug. “There’s no cups.”
    “You could wash one.”
    He looked at me and blinked. “What did you do today?” His shaggy brown hair, which hadn’t been cut in months, looked like road kill.
    “I went to school.” I poured dish detergent into the dishwasher and closed the door.
    “So how’s your senior year going?’
    “It’s going.” I opened the pantry and pulled out a Twinkie.
    “Can I have one?” he asked.
    I grabbed a second Twinkie and tossed it to him. “Isn’t this like breakfast for you?”
    He chuckled. “I guess. So tell me about your classes?”
    “Regular school classes.”
    “Meet any friends?”
    “No.”
    “Any boys?”
    “Double no.”
    He frowned. “You really need to get a social life. This is your senior year. You should have some fun.”
    “ You’re telling me to get a life?” I walked past him into the living room and sat down on the couch. The television came to life.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    Without turning to him, I said, “Last time I checked, twenty-six-year-old men are supposed to have jobs.”
    He let out a long, drawn-out sigh. “I was going to apply this week.”
    “That’s what you’ve been saying for months.”
    “It’s not like I was sitting around. I had school.”
    “You took one online class about making websites. That’s not the same as being in school.”
    He scratched his head. “Why are you being so grumpy? Did you have a bad day?”
    I groaned and flipped through the channels, trying to find something to distract me from the fight I felt brewing.
    “So, you’re not talking to me now?” he said through a mouthful of Twinkie.
    “Go back to your video games,” I mumbled.
    He waited a minute before walking back to his room.
    I should feel bad, but I didn’t. I’d put up with his crap for so long it was only a matter of time before I really blew up.
    *     *     *     *     *
    It was a sunny Tuesday morning. I hated Tuesdays. As far as I was concerned, Tuesdays could be removed from the days of the week and no one would ever notice. I swung my feet over the bed and slipped them into matted blue slippers to avoid the cold, wood floor. After getting dressed in record time, I left my room feeling invincible. Must be a full moon tonight.
    On the way to the kitchen, I peeked in on Jake. He still slept, covers pulled high over his head. The room smelled like sour milk and old pizza. On the TV, a chef skewered a halved banana. The comic potential drew me into the room, but the rank smell stopped me. I sighed and closed the door. Ever since our fight, I’d done my best to avoid him. This made the past few weeks endurable, but lonely.
    I picked up my backpack from the hall closet and flung it over my shoulder, barely feeling the weight of the four thick textbooks it contained, and then grabbed an apple. My body pulsated with so much energy that I decided to run to school. It was hard to control my body with my muscles firing away, and only extreme exercise helped relieve the prickly sensation.
    I laced up my tennis shoes and stepped outside