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JAKE

"And then he pulled a toothbrush out of his pants," said Eric, holding back his laughter so someone else could laugh first. That's just him.

"Whoa, dude, what?!" I shouted at him as we turned into the propped-open door of the 'Nifty Thrift' thrift store. He and Sarah both laughed at me. I couldn't help it. I had zoned out because I had "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" stuck in my head. Ah, those Beatles.

"Well," said Eric. "I'm not repeating it..." He wandered over to our favorite section of Nifty Thrift, the old abandoned t-shirt section. I followed him there to find some good, quality, 2 dollar t-shirts. Sarah migrated towards the big bin full of stuffed animals. She almost never buys anything, she just comes here with Eric and me. Nifty Thrift is basically a second home to Eric and me. The people behind the cash register know our names.

I thumb through a certain rack, while Eric goes through another. We're both looking for the same sort of thing. Old shirts that say stuff like "Meredith's 80th Birthday!" and "1976 Little League Champs." Those are the best kind. If it's cheap and wearable, I'm buying it.

Right the second I'm about to take a shirt that says "Good Shepherd Church's 4th Annual Bake Sale" off the rack, something large and soft clobbers my head. It was so unexpected that I just fell down right on my butt. I look around and see a gigantic stuffed tiger a couple feet away. Then I see Sarah laughing her ass off over by the animal bin. "Son of a bitch," I laugh to myself and I chuck the tiger back at her. It misses and knocks over some styrofoam mannequin head, which only causes Sarah to laugh more. As I get up, I glance over at Eric to see if he notices this little exchange, but hes lost in his little wonderland of stupid t-shirts.

Once I'm up I put my revenge plan into action and start walking towards Sarah and the animal bin. "Oh, shit," she murmurs, starting to run away, but then she realized I wasn't going for her. I calmly start emptying the animal bin and placing the furry demons by my feet. "What the hell are you doing, Jake?" she asks. I look up at her as I put down the last animal, and smile deviously.

I come eye to eye with her and simply state, "I'm burying you alive." She already has a scared smile on her face as I pick her up and throw her into the bin.

"Aah! Jake, no!" she keeps screaming as I pile the animals on her and push her down. We're both laughing our asses off and I'm surprised a worker hasn't come and told us to shut up yet. Suddenly, she grabs my wrist and pulls me in. Then we're both just scream-laughing and pulling each other back in when we try to get out and it probably looks really wrong but we just don't care because we're Jake and Sarah.

"Um, guys..." We stop being morons in the bin to look up at Eric who was giving us weird looks. It's a good thing the animal bim is in a corner, or else everyone in the store would be looking at us. "If you two wanna partake in incest, I'll respect your decision, but...just know that I don't do threesomes."

After staring at each other for a couple seconds we just burst out laughing. Sarah and I get out of the damn animal bin and clean it up a bit.

Eric shakes his head at us. I grab my bake sale shirt. Sarah somehow got Eric to link arms with her and skip to the cash register. Sarah can get Eric to do anything. But I swear to God, if they get together I'm going to give Eric a serious talk. Yes, I'm going to be that overprotective brother. It's my duty. I know Eric wouldn't be bad for her, though. He's a good guy. I just don't want anything bad to happen to either of them.

I have 5 bucks so I buy my bake sale shirt for $1.50 and I buy Sarah a stupid little 95 cent stuffed penquin. Eric buys a bright yellow shirt that says "Aaron's Bar Mitzvah '84" and he changes into it right in the middle of the store. Gotta love him.

We leave the store and walk down the lonely street. Nifty Thrift is on the corner of a residential block, so it doesn't get a shitload of business. We would have never discovered it if we didn't go on long, random walks all the time. The three of us make up the meaning of suburbs.

I suddenly come to the realization that time exists and is happening. "Shit," I say. "Eric, what time is it?" Eric is the only one who has a watch. I hate time. I look over at Sarah and she already looks scared for me. We don't need to be scared for her, but I am. I don't get scared for myself.

Eric looks at his watch. "Crap," he says. "It's four thirty-three."

"Damn," I say, and sigh. "Well, we're already late, so whatever. What's ten more minutes." Sarah gives me an apprehensive look, but I just smile and put my arm around her shoulders. "Come on, Sarah. How man times do I have to tell you not to worry about me?" Her mouth twitches. "We don't even know if anything will happen."

She looks up at me and whispers, "Okay." I hug her and then we keep walking.

Suddenly, Eric starts singing 'Mad World.' That song is amazing with calming us down. No matter how weird the lyrics are, it's just so relaxing. "I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad..." Eric goes on. Eric has one of the most amazing singing voices I have ever heard. It's so soothing and just awesome. Sadly, Eric will only sing for Sarah and I. Not a single other person. Not even his mom. Poor kid. He kind of closed himself off once his dad left. Not hardcore really, he just keeps most things to himself - except from me and Sarah - and he gets himself into trouble a lot. His poor mom just can't handle it.

I just don't know how Eric handles it all. His adoption, his adoptive father just up and leaving, his mother's depression. We both have shitty home situations, and though some would choose otherwise, I would definitely choose my current situation over his. I would die if I had al that on my plate.

I'm too zoned out to realize that Eric has stopped singing, so I snap to attention when he says, "Here is where we part ways. I will see you tomorrow, fair travellers." I notice that we're in front of his house.

"Goodbye, Eric Gregory!" says Sarah. She loves calling him by his first and middle names. They hug. That I'm okay with because I'm a hugger myself, so I don't want to deny them that right.

Now, Eric and I hug and say "Bye" and he goes around to his back door to go inside.

Sarah na dI walk home silently. I'm thinking about her and I know she's thinking about me. This is how it goes a lot of Friday nights that we're late getting home. Late is one second past four. Our dad gets home at four. Friday is the day our dad drinks. Not every single Friday, but most. He has never picked on Sarah, it's always me. I still worry about Sarah. I worry about everyone but myself. It just doesn't affect me anymore.

Anyway, Sarah and I are about a block from home. It sucks how Fridays are always so amazing at one point and so crappy the next. It was random how we completely disregarded time today. It's not the first time, but we've been pretty good about it recently. And actually, it's usually me that's late. Sarah usually goes home instead of coming to Nifty Thrift with us. Today she didn't. Blah.

Sarah and I go in through the front door, which is almost never locked. We're both relieved to see that our dad isn't in the first toom, the tv room. Our mom is, though. "'Sup, Jane?" I say, standing in the middle of the room. Sarah stands behind me. I drop my Nifty Thrift bag by the table.

Mom looks up from her magazine with a bemused look on her face and says, "Jacob, stop it." She looks at Sarah. "How are you, Sarah?" Dear old mom.

"Good," Sarah barely whispers.

We looks towards the kitchen as we hear out dad from inside it say, "Are they home yet??" Sarah turns around and walks to her room. Good. That's where she should go.

"I'm right here, father dearest," I say, entering the kitchen. I know it seems like I'm asking for trouble, but he's gonna be an asshole whether I act stupid or not, so why not have a little fun? And for that matter, he's gonna be an asshole whether he's been drinking or not.

Wow, he's definitely been drinking. There's always those telltale signs, like his glazed over eyes, his lopsided stance, and of course the glass in his hand. I roll my eyes at him.

"Where the hell have you been, wise-ass?" he says.

"The Bahamas," I say. "It's quite nice there this time of year." His eyes narrow. I sigh and roll my eyes again. "Where I always am, dad. Jesus." 'Jake, why do you provoke him? I don't want you to get hurt.' I stop my sarcasm when I hear Sarah's voice in my head.

But as soon as I blink, dad's fist is on my face and I'm on the ground. Fuck, that hurt. Maybe just because he hasn't hit me in a while.

"Too much to handle, smart-ass?" he shouts. Then he takes a wicked kick right into my stomach. My eyes water - not because of emotion, but because of pain - and I curl up with my hands around my stomach. "You'd better toughen up, Jake. And get home on fucking time." I roll over onto my back just in time to see him leave the kitchen.

Asshole. Big stupid asshole. What kind of person hits their kid? I'm gonna have a nasty bruise. Oh, god, where did he punch my face?

I get up - fuck, that hurts my stomach. I have to walk through the tv room to get to the hallway, so I'll be passing mom, and maybe dad. I go in there and see my mom calmly reading her magazine. She doesn't look up at me. She never does. How does it feel, mom, to totally neglect the abuse of your kid?

Dad, thank god, has probably gone to his bedroom to crash, because he's not in the tv room. I pick up my thrift store bag and head sowly down the hallway. My stomach hurts like a bitch and I'm starting to get a headache. When I pass Sarah's room, I can hear her breathing heavily, probably because she had been crying.

The only thing I'm glad about right now is that it wasn't sarah. There are much worse things dad could do to Sarah. I don't even wanna think about it.

I get to the bathroom at the end of the hall to check out my face in the mirror and...sweet, I have a nice black eye to show off.

This is your life, Jake. Fucking deal with it.