Edward NEVER gets sick.

Sure, he can fake it better then anyone that I've ever met, but he's never even gotten a cold. "He was the only child that I gave birth to that didn't wake me up because he was sick." Mom would sometimes tell me when I asked about him. So when he came home hacking his brains out, I had mixed emotions. I wasn't too horrifyingly worried because I wasn't sure if he was faking or not. The only thing that kept me on edge was the fact that Edward's coughing doesn't sound like he's about to cough his lungs out.

As usual, mom ran to Edward with the thermometer, dad said that he was faking from the recliner in the living room, and Ellen continued to read her textbook on the couch. The only reason that Ellen, our younger sister and the smartest girl that any of our family has ever seen. The only reason that she was home from her top-ranking private school was because she'd broken her ankle in her Gym class. Though she wanted to go to school, she'd just gotten home that morning and mom wanted to baby her a little. She's crazy like that; she wants to be "super mom" and care for all of us all of the time.

As for why I was home, I had been homeschooled for about a year on that day; I stopped going to public school as my thirteenth birthday present.That gave me the perfect opportunity to achieve my dream; that cut off all communication that I had with anyone outside of my family. It's not because I'm not a people person that this was my dream, though that is true. No, I hate the way that we humans treat each other; we lie, we cheat, we steal, and we murder without thinking twice about it. And my peers were the perfect example of it. But I don't like to talk about them; I never have.

I could hear Edward's hacking all the way from my room, which was down the hallway and up the stairs from the front door. I thrusted my literature textbook against the wall, enjoyed the loud THUMP! sound that it made, and rushed downstairs into the family room. When I got there, Edward had perched his back against the door in a desperate attempt to catch his breath, and mom had already brought the thermometer to his forehead. She obviously expected it to be normal, but she had the same worried expression in her eyes as I was sure that I did.

I heard my dad's recliner adjust and I heard him step onto the floor. The sound sent shivers down my spine; I knew that Edward was in for a beating if he was faking again. I knew that Edward and dad hated each other; they had never hugged, never spent time together, and never even talked to each other unless they absolutely needed to.

Ellen looked up form her book and our eyes met; we were both worried about our older brother. "He'd better not be faking." she whispered, and I nodded. I looked back at mom's expression as she took the thermometer off of his forehead and gasped. Only two words passed her thin lips as she looked up at dad, who was standing in the doorway with a switch.

"He's sick."

As if on cue, Edward stated to cough again. I was suddenly filled with so much fear for my older brother that I was at his side immediately and I wrapped my arms around him. I had the silly idea that my embrace would make the coughing stop. Even Ellen appeared to be in paralyzing shock; those two words had never been used in the same sentence unless mom and dad were talking about Edward's sanity. Dad still didn't appear to believe it, and he glowered at Edward from his spot. Or was he glowering at me? He never did like the fact that Edward and I were closer then normal brothers; it was like he wanted us to fuss and fight and hate each other.

The second the coughing ceased Edward pulled away from me and shoved past mom. Everyone stood in shock as he trudged upstairs and closed his door. I was the most shocked, though. I hadn't done anything wrong; I just wanted to make the coughing go away. I began to walk towards the stairs, but dad lunged at me and grabbed my wrist. He said absolutely nothing, but his eyes showed what he was thinking: Don't go up there or you'll get the worst beating of your life.

Mom looked at dad and sighed. "Let him go see what's wrong, Cedric. Edward's probably scared out of his mind; the only time that he's gotten sick was when he went out and got drunk with his friends."

Dad let go and I rushed upstairs. Everything was a blur as I ran up the stairs, (tripping and slamming my face into the floor once,) and knocked on Edward's door before walking in. It turned out that mom was right; Edward convinced that he was a little scared that he'd wake up dead in the morning. I reassured him and told him that it was probably just a cold; nothing to worry about at all. I sat with him the entire afternoon, too; I refused to come down for lunch and eat dinner in his room with him.

Just before he told me he was going to sleep, he stared at me for the longest time. "You're going to grow up, Dwin," Dwin was an affectionate nickname that he'd given me the way that I was born, "And someone's going to take you, phobias, human flaws and the works, and their going to love you for the rest of your life. And when that happens, I'm going to remember this and tell that someone all about it." He coughed.

I smiled. I don't know what possessed me to smile, but I did. Then, I didn't know how sick and twisted that sentence was, because it was going to happen so soon and so fast that it was going to slap me in the face. I was going to have someone take me and love me, but we weren't going to live happily ever after.

That kind of thing only happens in fairytales, anyway.