“Phillip!” I can already hear Mom yelling outside the house. Dad has done something to get himself in trouble, probably. As usual I took the bus home because Dad hasn’t been able to get his car fixed and Mom won’t pay to have it fixed. They don’t always seem happy with each other any more. It’s why I try hard not to cause any more trouble for them. I try not to make trouble for them, not like my older brother or my younger brother.

Hesitating, I finally open the front door. Pretending that I heard nothing. Jamie is sitting on the couch. He looks a lot like our Dad. He’s probably better looking too. I hear he’s popular in the middle school he goes to. He always gets things like confessions and letters in his locker. Which he ignores. He cares a bit more about things like appearance and fame.

I don’t see Brenton. Looking up the stairs, is he hiding out in his room?

Jamie looks up from his homework, “Twister Terror.”

That’s his code word for when Mom is upset, but not too upset. She hates it. He’s gotten in trouble for it a few times, but since she’s busy yelling at Dad in the kitchen about something she doesn’t hear him. It’s not the only thing she hates about Jamie. Since he hasn’t entirely hit puberty yet, he tends to dress in a relatively androgynous way. Sometimes it’s confusing too, I am not sure if he wants to be a girl or not, especially with keeping his hair long. Acceptably long. Mom won’t let him go to a certain length so it remains at chin length. He usually wears it in a ponytail that the girls at school really like.

“You know you’ll get in trouble for saying that,” I tell him.

“Yeah, and?” Jamie ask.

“Brenton upstairs?” I ask.

“Yeah, he’s hiding,” Jamie responds. While fixing a crease in his pink shirt. Deciding to avoid Mom and Dad right now, I head upstairs. Brenton usually has better advice than Jamie does. Well of course he would, he’s our older brother. I go to him or Dad usually. Mom’s usually still at work by the time I get home from school.

Our house isn’t relatively that large. The upstairs hallway is relatively small, the master bedroom is down the hall. Us boys share one bathroom. Brenton is probably trying to stay out of trouble, he’s already in trouble for getting a lip piercing. And he already got in trouble for dying his hair navy blue. Mom made him change it. Now it’s slightly dark red.

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Brenton’s door is guarded by some caution tape. I knock.

“Yeah,” Brenton responds.

“It’s me,” I respond.

I hear him slide his desk chair to reach the door knob, opening it up, “What do you want?”

“Something happened at school,” I state.

He sighs, “Sure. Come in.” He swings the door a bit wider open. I don’t see him in anything else, but his oversized sweater. He’s been hiding more. I think some stuff happened at school, before summer break, that boiled over into summer break. I don’t really know much about his life outside of our home. I sit on his floor. He looks at me.

“What’s up?” Brent ask me.

“So, I got uh, volunannoyed to tutor someone today at school,” I tell him picking at a string on the carpet.

Brent, “Volun, what now?”

“Volunannoyed, to tutor someone at school today,” I state, “He’s kind of the bad kid at school. He also has bad grades too.”

Brent takes a second, gives a, huh, before going back to his computer. He’s still listening. He kind of dresses sort of like the goth kids at school, but not as extreme. Mom wouldn’t let him, “Sounds like someone I would know.”

“Yeah, um,” I begin, “It’s Ian Gregory.”

Brent gives a, “Uh. Huh. That checks out.”

“You knew him?” I ask.

Brent gives a so, so gesture, “Not really. We hung out in similar circles. So I know Of Him. I talked to him a few times, but indirectly. He was dating my best friend.”

That girl Mom never approved. Because she showed her bra. And shaved her hair.

“Right,” I pause, “What do you think?”

“About?”

“Helping him?”

“I don’t know Adam,” Brent tells me, “That’s up to you to decide. All I can say is Ian is self destructive. He sabotages almost everything he touches. If he has an ounce of something good, he does something to set it on fire. Dousing himself and everyone else in fire.”

“So, I shouldn’t,”

Brent shrugs.

“You have to decide yourself, I am just warning you, he doesn’t seem like the type of person to care much about others,”

Watching Brent for a second, “He was actually super terrifying. Is he always that intimidating?”

“Yep, that’s Ian,” Brent responds with a nod.

“How good is he in a fight?” I ask him.

Brent scrunches up his face while focusing on a document, “Last I heard, he got the shit beat out of him after running his mouth to some jocks.”

“Really he looked like he could snap my bones,”

“That’s Ian,” Brent shrugs, “I really don’t like talking about him. He was pretty outrageous over the summer from what I hear. Worse than his usual. He was tearing through every person he knew. He even stole money from what I hear. Everyone in our circle is a little burned from Ian. So let’s drop the subject.”

Well that doesn’t really help me. I feel like Ian is the type to hunt me down if I tried to avoid him and I am not sure what type of repellent works on him.