The Bandage on the Other Side

Aaron rose from beside the duffel, and his weight shifted away from his left leg. The movement was quick, but I caught it. His shoulders tightened as if even standing hurt.

He turned toward the doorway. I slipped back against the wall, my pulse knocking hard beneath my ribs. I waited for him to find me there.

The door stayed where it was, barely open. Then a small metallic sound came from the lock. Aaron had shut himself inside.

Mom’s rule was clear: bedroom doors stayed unlocked. She enforced it every time, even when we complained that we needed privacy. Aaron had never tested her before.

I remained in the hall, watching the strip of darkness beneath his door. I wanted to knock, but I couldn’t think of what to say.

That afternoon, Mom drove to the grocery store. It was the first time Aaron and I had been alone since his return.

He sat on the sofa beneath the living-room window, his phone in one hand and a baseball game flickering silently on the television. His left leg lay straight across the coffee table.

I took the armchair opposite him and folded my legs close to my chest. For a while, I listened to the television without hearing it.

“Was Florida all baseball?” I asked. I tried to make the question sound ordinary, the way I imagined a sister would.

Aaron kept his eyes on his screen. “Pretty much. We worked every day.”

I asked if the camp had let him pitch. His thumb moved over the phone while he answered that he’d spent more time in the outfield.

Then I asked about the coaches. He finally glanced up, irritation briefly passing over his face.

“Ruby, why all the questions?” he said. “I’m trying to relax.”

I lowered my eyes. “I missed having you around.”

His expression changed. The annoyance softened, leaving behind a tired sadness that seemed too old for someone who was only fourteen.

He set his phone down on the cushion and leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs. “I missed you too, kid.”

As he bent his left knee, a faint tension pulled at his jaw. I saw it, though he acted as if nothing had happened.

I asked whether he’d injured himself while he was in Florida. The quiet that followed seemed to fill the whole room.

Aaron stopped moving. Instead of checking his leg, he fixed his eyes on me. He seemed to be searching my face for clues.

“No,” he said at last. His voice had gone blank. “Nothing happened to my leg.”

I told him he was limping. He answered that the flight had left his knee stiff.

I reminded him I’d seen the sweatshirt he put beneath the mattress. My words came out before I could decide whether they were wise.

The sadness dropped away. His face became guarded, hard to read. I had seen that expression on our father when his temper was about to rise.

“Were you watching me?” Aaron asked. His voice was low.

I said I hadn’t been spying; his bedroom door had been open, and I’d happened to see.

Aaron got up. This time he held himself straight, as though he could hide the pain by refusing to bend.

He came over to the chair, standing close enough that I had to look up at him.

“Ruby, listen,” he said in a tight whisper. “You have to quit digging into everything. Let it alone.”

I started to answer, but he cut me off before I could get the words out.

“Mom’s got enough to worry about. I’m home, and it’s all right now. Don’t turn this into something complicated. Do you understand?”

I nodded, though my stomach had twisted itself into a knot. The boy in front of me looked like Aaron, but his voice made him feel like a stranger.

He returned to the sofa and picked up his phone. For an instant, its screen lit his fingers before he pressed the button at its side.

A message had arrived. There was no contact name, only a phone number. Its first three digits were 406.

I didn’t know much about area codes. Still, I remembered that Florida used numbers like 305 and 407. Aaron had mentioned needing a temporary local number for the camp’s emergency list.

The digits on his screen didn’t belong to Florida. I knew that much.

They belonged to Montana. I was sure because Montana was where our father lived now, the place Mom never wanted us to talk about.

Aaron slipped the phone into his pocket and left the room. I stayed in the armchair as the baseball players moved in silence on television.

His footsteps sounded overhead, heavy and uneven. I listened until they reached the top of the stairs and disappeared.

The camp had supposedly kept him away for four months. It was supposed to be in Florida, where he could play baseball.

I stared down at my hands, trying to fit the stories together. The limp, the hidden sweatshirt, his anger, and that number all pointed somewhere else.

Aaron hadn’t spent the summer in Florida. My brother had been lying about where he went.