"I'm getting there. But to fully understand, you need to know the history. When we were young, I adored Joseph. He grew faster than me, and instead of looking at him like a twin, it was almost as if he was an older sibling. Even at a young age, Joseph was taking the world by storm. I was content to follow behind in his shadow. At least for a while," George said as he sat back. Katherine wasn't sure if he even realized she was in the room anymore.
"All siblings' fight, that's nothing new."
"Yes, all siblings fight, but then they make up. I remember the moment I stopped idolizing Joseph and started to resent him. We were in the seventh grade. A new girl moved into our school, and I fell hard for her. Yes, I know, I was only a kid, but to me it was true love. She was shy, and sweet, and so pretty. A Valentine's dance was coming up and it took me a week to work up the courage, but I finally decided to ask her to be my date. I picked her out a nice necklace, and decided to wait until after school. I'd told Joseph I had a crush on her, but I hadn't gone into many details. At lunch that day, he asked her to the dance, and she said, yes. I was devastated. Looking back, I had barely said anything about her to Joseph, so he didn't really know, but to me he'd just stolen the only thing I'd asked to keep for myself."
Some of the tension left Katherine's body as George talked. She could hear the confusion and hurt from so many years ago, and she found herself wanting to comfort him. She had to make herself keep her defenses up, but it was becoming increasingly more difficult.
"He took her to the dance, and they decided they wanted to be friends and nothing more, but she was tainted to me after that. I didn't see her the same way. She tried to talk to me the following Monday during lunch as we'd been doing for months, and I snubbed her. I don't think she ever realized why I suddenly stopped being her friend. She ended up moving two years later and I never did explain it to her."
Kinsey felt bad for the shy teenager. She'd been the exact same way, too afraid of rejection to put herself out there. It was silly when she thought about it, but one thing she hadn't figured out how to do was go back in time and slap herself upside the head.
After that, I pulled away from Joseph. He was so popular and always busy so he didn't notice until the bond was severed beyond repair. In high school he asked me if we had a problem, and I acted like there wasn't one. I told him I was busy with school and different activities. He believed me, but he started pulling from me as well. We continued drifting apart. To this day, we hardly ever talk. I miss my brother. He was my best friend and I let jealousy tear us in two."
George choked as he spoke the last sentence. Katherine couldn't hold the tears off any longer, and one fell from her eye, slowly sliding down her cheek. He looked at her and gave her a semblance of a smile before carefully lifting his hand and wiping the lone tear with the soft pad of his thumb.
"I didn't mean to upset you, or wallow in self-pity. It's just that sometimes it really gets to me," he apologized.
"I also cry during those sappy coffee commercials so don't be too hard on yourself," Katherine told him with a depreciating laugh.
"The years continued slipping away from us, one right after the other and all of a sudden we were adults and still had this strange distance between us, but added to that was a new competition. I was determined to beat him at anything. I wanted to watch him fall on his face, to see the all perfect Joseph Anderson fail. We saw you at the dance, and I overheard some of the girls talking about you, calling you the ice queen."
At least he had the decency to cringe as he said it. Katherine still felt hurt about those days. Her shyness was taken as condescending. Her choosiness in men as snobbery. She hadn't wanted to make the mistakes she'd watched her mother make.
"Before I thought about your feelings, I goaded Joseph. I bet him there was at least one girl at the dance he wouldn't be able to make fall all over him. Since he'd never had that happen, he felt pretty sure in accepting the challenge. He hadn't heard the girls talking. I pointed you out, and his eyes widened when he took you in for the first time. I think he was instantly smitten. As he approached you and asked for a dance, I had a smirk on my face, expecting you to snub him and walk away. When you accepted with a pure, sweet smile, I realized my mistake. No girl can fake that innocence. I instantly regretted the bet, knowing it was all going to go south. When you danced straight through the next three songs, and I saw the way you looked at him, I felt like the lowest of the low."
Katherine didn't even realize her cheeks were wet from her tears. As he talked about that night five years ago, it was as if she was living it all over again. She remembered it like yesterday, how she felt when the most eligible bachelor in the room had walked up and asked her to dance. How his laughter had brightened her world. By the end of the night she was half-way in love with him, by the end of the month, she was over the moon in love.