"How do you feel about babysitting?"

That's the only thing I heard when I picked up the phone, early Saturday morning. No greeting. No context.

"Come again?"

I had been reading for quite a while already but I was exhausted and my bones refused to embrace their designed functions at the early hour.

The number was unfamiliar but I recognized Matthew's cheery voice on the other end.

"Are you busy?" he asked as if he couldn't picture me doing anything important on a Saturday.

"As usual."

I placed the book back onto the nightstand and went over my plans for the day in my mind, offended that he would think that I had nothing to do. I sighed when I realized that I couldn't come up with anything.

"Really? Did I dial the wrong number?" A low chuckle followed the question and I wished he could have seen the scowl on my face.

"Is there a purpose to this call, Matthew?" I tried to put in as much venom as I could in his name but either I didn't succeed or he couldn't care less.

"That's what I started with. Are you paying attention? Babysitting. Do you like children?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" I asked, against my better judgment. Ignoring him altogether was probably a better option.

I reluctantly got out of bed and paced around the room. Today, more than usual, I could feel the disconcerting emptiness of the space Riley was supposed to occupy.

As we neared the anniversary of her death, it was getting increasingly difficult to detect any sign that she had ever lived here. The liveliness and colors that followed her wherever she went were wiped off and blandness now veiled the walls, a painful reminder of her absence.

"Well, I may need your help with something," Matthew said after a while.

If I didn't know him, maybe I would have missed the hesitation in his voice.

"Me?"

The other side of the line went quiet and I pictured him rolling his eyes.

"I mean, with what? How can I help you?" I asked, trying not to feel too flattered that he would ask me, out of everyone, for help.

"I need you to keep an eye on my brother while I take care of a few other things."

"You have a brother?"

Maybe it wasn't as shocking as it then appeared to me. Matthew and I weren't the closest anyway and he was always so secretive.

"Yes," he replied, matter-of-factly. "Unless you'd rather babysit my fictional brother instead." He paused and waited for a reaction to his snarky comment that never came. "I just didn't know who else to call. Avan is unreachable on weekends, and the boys are all in basketball practice for semi-finals. So, I thought of you. Listen, you can say no."

As if he didn't know that it was impossible to say no to him.

"Of course. Just tell me what to do."

"Well, I was thinking you could take him to the park or something. I can drop him there. Do you need a ride?"

"No, I'll meet you there," I said and tossed the phone onto my bed when he hung up.

I changed from my pajamas into more presentable clothes. I jogged down the stairs and grabbed an apple from Dad's precious fruit basket. Dad's car wasn't in the driveway so I figured he was off to work already.

The sun hadn't completely risen yet and the hesitant rays swept over the sidewalk as I headed to the park. The entire way, my heart swelled with the excitement of catching a glimpse of Matthew's life that he didn't readily reveal.

When my exhausted legs finally made it to the park, Matthew and a little boy were already there, waiting for me at the entrance of the park. He waved when he noticed me and the mini version of him, who seemed to be around ten years old, hesitantly stared at me.

"Thanks for coming," he said to me when I reached them, then he turned to mini-Matthew and knelt to ruffle his hair. "I'll be back later. You just have to watch over my friend, Ava, for a few hours. She's lonely, you see, and she begged me to let her hang out with you."

The boy scoffed and shook his head, clearly not buying it. He had Matthew's dark hair and his freckles, but as they both turned and smiled at me, only his was genuine.

Matthew looked beyond exhausted and his eyes didn't conceal it well.

"This is Marveen," he said, standing up straight, "though he'd much rather go by Inigo after the school's spring play. Want to act out your catchphrase for Ava?"

Color highlighted Marveen's round chubby cheeks and he looked down. "No," he mumbled.

His brother laughed, throwing his head back though he looked anything but relaxed. "I thought you wanted to impress the girl."

I came to Marveen's rescue when I noticed his ears tinge red. "Do you have somewhere to be, Matthew?"

"Oh, right," he said, suddenly serious again. "I'll leave you two to it, then." He waved as he walked to the green car.

Marveen looked up to make sure his brother was gone and breathed out a sigh of relief.

"He hasn't dropped it since the play last month. It's nice to meet you, Ava," he said and politely extended his hand to me.

I bent down and shook his hand, an uncontrollable smile spreading on my lips. "Nice to meet you too, Marveen."

We walked together and he sat by me at the rusty picnic table under the shade of an oak tree. The park was much more crowded than usual. Children and teens ran across the large field, playing all sorts of pick-up games.

"Did Matthew force you to do the play?" I asked.

"No." He looked down again. "He wasn't even supposed to know about it, but Uncle Ben couldn't keep a secret." He shook his head in disappointment. "But anyway, I got myself into that mess all by myself this time."

"How?"

He looked up at me with narrowed eyes, as if to make sure that he could trust me with the information. "There's this girl," he started and I bit my lip to hide a grin so I wouldn't scare him away. "She got the role of the princess, so I auditioned as well because I— because she's, uh, she's kind of cool. I wanted to play Westley, but I got stuck as Inigo."

I could no longer hide my smile. The exasperation on his face was simply adorable

"They said I didn't look cool enough to be Westley," he added with a small huff.

"I'll let you in on a secret," I told him, and he leaned in across the table to hear it. "I always considered Inigo the main character. He was much cooler than Westley."

"Really?" His gray eyes scintillated, pleased by the news.

"Absolutely. I'm sure Buttercup would have fallen in love with Inigo if he was nearly as smart and handsome as you."

He giggled and revealed a small chip in one of his front teeth. When he noticed that I was looking at him, he brushed his hair over his eyes, as to hide them completely.

"What are you doing?" I asked, amused at the skillful way his little fingers ruffled the strands over his forehead.

"The kids in my grade say I look less scary like this," he said, the innocent smile on his lips never faltering.

"You don't look scary at all. How would you even see where you're going like this?" I cleared the hair from his eyes cautiously and his eyes peered up at me suspiciously.

"People kind of avoid me. I have no one to bump into," he said, tucking his legs under himself. "It's okay; I don't want to hang out with them, anyways. They're all immature and childish."

I stared at the 10-year-old boy ranting about maturity and I tried not to burst into fits of laughter. He was indeed much more mature than most kids his age, maybe even more so than his brother, but the way his young face scrunched up with feigned indifference made it impossible for me to take him seriously.

"Come on," I said and rose from the seat. "Let's have some fun."

He watched me, confusion etched on his face as he followed me to the swing sets. "You said 'fun'," he pointed out in an accusing tone.

"You'll see." I smiled as I remembered the last time I had been here.

During the rest of the morning, I revisited with him all the playground sets Avan and I had gone to, just a few days ago. Marveen seemed about ready to take a break when a boy who looked around his age approached us.

He was biting into a hot dog on a stick and he bent down to pick up his ball with his free hand and extended it to Marveen. Marveen glanced at me, subtly asking me what to do. I smiled at him encouragingly, and he accepted the ball, eyeing it with suspicious eyes.

"My name is Ryan. Want to play?"

Marveen hesitantly glanced at me. "I cannot leave my friend."

"Of course you can," I said and urged him to go. "I'll sit right here and watch."

"I'm Marveen," I heard him say as they ran to the grass, kicking the ball ahead of them.

I watched them chat and laugh, as they chased each other on the field and I found it fascinating how quickly children could get along.

"Intriguing, isn't it?"

The voice startled me and I shifted on the bench to find Matthew sitting next to me. He didn't turn to me even as I stared at him, maintaining his gaze on the boys. He wore a red hoodie even though it must have been a hundred degrees today.

"How did it go?" he asked, nodding towards his brother.

"Great. Marveen's a sweetheart." I hesitated before asking, "Did you do whatever it was that you wanted to do?"

He looked too tired to keep up with the insincere smiles and a frown settled on his face, possibly the first honest expression I'd ever seen on him.

"Not as I expected."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, conflicted between curiosity and respect for his privacy.

"No, I don't," he replied with a sigh.

The answer didn't surprise me and I tried to mask my disappointment by watching Marveen track Ryan's ball.

"My father's prison release date was today," he suddenly said and though I tried not to look shocked, I ended up gaping.

He dismissed my reaction with a small wave of his hand and a soft smile. "Oh, don't worry, he absolutely deserved his sentence."

Since I couldn't come up with any intelligible thing to say, I opted for silence.

"I didn't know how to react," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. He almost didn't seem to address me, as if he just wanted to get it all out. "I was afraid he'd come back home; that's why I wanted Marveen away."

The more he talked, the less I understood, but I was afraid that if I said a word, he would remember that I was here and he would stop talking.

But the silence that ensued was gnawing away at my nerves, so I had to say something. "Are you two not on speaking terms?" I asked cautiously because there was no polite way to ask people what crime their dad committed.

"Speaking terms? Let's just say that after Mom dumped him, he developed an unhealthy interest in alcohol... and his belt. A dangerous combination." He chuckled and bitterness dripped from his tone.

"What does that mean?" I asked and automatically regretted it when his face turned grim. "You don't have to tell me. I mean, you can if you want to. But, well—" Why couldn't I stop talking?

He stared at me for what felt like hours before glancing down at the long sleeves of his hoodie.

Without a word, he tugged on one of the sleeves and pulled it up to his elbow. Long marks and bruises stretched across his forearm. They were fading but they seemed so deeply engraved into his flesh that it pained me to look at them.

My hand instinctively rose to touch the scars but I pulled back when I noticed him flinch. He tucked it back over his arm.

"Did— did your dad...?" I cleared the knot in my throat and regretted asking anything.

He shrugged. "It was a bad year for him. Anyway, hence the jackets."

"To help you hide."

"You wear one too, you know?" he said and I glanced at him, perplexed. "You may not realize it, but you wear your sister as a shield and hope that no one will try to look any further... So that you won't have to be you, because you think "you" is a difficult person to be."

His words stung like I was voluntarily inching too close to a fire I had no business being around.

"We all wear one," he added in response to my stunned silence.

He stood up and gave me his usual grin as if the conversation hadn't happened. "Come on, I'll give you a ride home."

A/N: Thanks for reading!

As always, thank you for voting and commenting.

-D.T. ➷