I pull the magazines from under his bed and to my utter shock, the top one is Out. I take a look to the rest and am even more surprised if possible. Advocate, Instinct, Men, Unzipped… even some magazines full of nude guys which is obviously gross to me.

What is Ken doing with all these gay magazines? Suddenly, I remember the scene at the kitchen table, a whole while ago now.

~~~~~~~~~~~~Flasback: Chapter 4~~~~~~~~~~~~

I go to the kitchen where Ken is eating a taco. He’s hanging out with some of his ‘old friends’ tonight. Kate is in the living room with my parents.

“Can I have on of those?” I ask, pointing at the plate in front of my brother which has three taco’s left. Kennards have a big stomach and Ken is no exception.

He shrugs. “Sure.”

I see that he’s reading a magazine, must be sports or something. He doesn’t have enough brain to process something else. I decide to be the interested sister anyway.

“What are you reading?” I don’t wait for an answer and grab the magazine. Ken stops me with the quickest reflex he has ever shown. His face is all flustered.

“Leave it,” he says through gritted teeth. “I don’t look in your stuff either.”

“Relax,” I say, trying to calm him. Why does he overreact like that? “If you don’t want anyone to see it, why read it at the kitchen table?”

“It’s none of your business, Christina.” He uses my full name knowing how much I hate that.

“Don’t be such a drama queen, Kenneth.” He hates his full name as well. That’s something my brother, my sister and I have in common. Our parents named us Kenneth, Christina and Kathleen. All three of us hate those names and prefer the shorter versions: Ken, Tina and Kate. Our parents use our full names when they are cross with us and it’s really bad, we call each other by our full names when we want to annoy them or want the other to get pissed. Mostly after they got you pissed.

“Now eat your taco and shut up,” he says. He puts the magazine away in his bag. This really surprises me, the Ken I know would want me to keep my hands off his precious taco’s after calling him Kenneth and making him mad. He’s acting weird. He has a secret. I’ll find out. In the mean while I might as well eat something.