From over the top of his newspaper, Andrew Peabody observed his younger sister. They had spent nearly every waking second together whilst growing up, the same group of friends, the same hobbies and extracurricular activities, even the same first boyfriend, but only now was he beginning to question the woman that little girl had grown into. He recalled their teenage years together, when she was just developing from a child and he was ready to become an adult. She was always so much more mature for her age, ceaselessly butting into adult conversations as if she could offer a worthy opinion, and was thus thrust upon her elder brother to keep her busy when their parents had company. 

Andrew would take her out, she would meet his friends, and more often than not, especially when she became a steadfast member in their group dynamics, he would hear rumours of what she had done with a particular guy. Andrew would, of course, close his ears to any such rumours, get angry at those who spoke about them in front of him, and had tried his best to generally shut out all disturbing mental images that threatened an early psychosis. The point of his musings, Andrew thought to himself, was that Helena had never seemed more straight. She had always been accepting of his sexuality, often told him she knew before he did, and he had never reason to question her sexual orientation. 

Two remaining factors, however, caused Andrew to think that his sister was perhaps just coming to terms with an altogether new side of herself. One, she and Dylan were becoming increasingly close at an alarming rate. He was happy, of course, that she was getting along with his friend, but Andrew never expected Helena to get along with her this well. Dylan, in turn, often appeared smitten with his sister. Whenever he would spy them together, especially those rare glances they would share when they thought no one was looking, he would see his friend falling faster for his sister than she had over anyone in the six years he had known her. 

And, the second little fact, he was always able to read his sister like a book. Always. When she was the one who had bent the spine of his copy of Annie Proulx’s Close Range, he saw the flicker of panic and guilt over her face the second he walked through the door and instantly knew she had done something wrong. When she came on her period for the first time whilst at one of their parents’ ‘friends’ dinners and was expected to sit at the table and keep quiet, he had known that something was obviously wrong and had escorted her hurriedly from the table. The day before, with her flushed face and skittering eyes, Andrew instinctively knew that something had happened to make Helena flee from his gaze. The second he heard the toilet flushing from above and was aware of another’s presence in his house, he thought he knew the reason why, though he questioned who Helena would know well enough to invite into his home. When Dylan appeared, the pieces began to shuffle themselves into place, sealing over each ragged edge until Andrew had been left with a burning image he simply could not ignore.