#narrator is Danica. she and Matt and their other two adopted siblings are superheros with superpowers

[fourohfourrealitynotfound]

Family Business

For @flashfictionfridayofficial #FFF225 - I Can't Tell

617 words

"So what's this about you and Matt not being available on weekend nights?" Evan asked. He had been waving his pencil in his hand but it was still now, held ready to write. 

"Uh, yeah," I stammered. "We aren't." My shoulders were tense now, hands planted in the plush carpet on either side of my laptop. 

"But why?" He was using the same tone on me that I had heard him use with tricky interview subjects, the ones who were a pain to get good quotes from. 

I chewed at my lips. What was the cover story here? I hadn't bothered to remember that lie as much, since I never really hung out with people outside of school in the first place. "What did Matt tell you?" 

Evan shrugged. "MacKenzie just said he couldn't hang out on Friday and Saturday nights, and that it was a family thing." 

"Family thing," I said. "Yeah, family game night. Very exclusive. Very mandatory. Helena and Kath want us to have bonding time, so we can feel like a 'normal' family." 

"Really?" Evan's voice had an uptick I didn't like. "Because Matt said it was family dinner, not a game night." 

I tilted my head, right then left. "Dinner with games. Same thing." I squinted at him, inspecting his face: careful neutrality. "You said he said it was just a 'family thing.' Why the interrogation?" 

"Why did you ask me what he said before you answered?" he countered.  

I stood my ground, peering at him over the lip of my laptop screen. The pencil picked up its beat again, and Evan finally crumpled a few moments later. He threw it down onto his textbook to mark his place and shut it, shoving it aside. Evan prodded at my laptop, and I saved my work and shut the screen too. I sat up so our eyes were even. 

"You—well, you and Matt and everyone—there's just something missing about you all. Like they're something you're leaving out." Evan kept staring off into the air, like he was searching for the right words to say. 

I huffed. "We're adopted, Evan. We're not going to be the most open about our childhoods or family situations or whatever." 

"No, it's not that. It's not about your past. It's about your present. Like you're withholding something about you now. What are you hiding?"  

He looked me in the eyes now, his gaze piercing straight through my skin. I feel like he was peeling back my forehead to read "has secret superpowers and a superhero alternate identity" engraved on my skull. It was unnerving.  

What lie was there to tell? He knew there was a secret, but I didn't have any bones to throw him to keep him satisfied. Evan had the makings of a fantastic investigative reporter: he wouldn't stop pulling at the threads until they were unraveled in front of him.  

"I . . . I can't tell you." I said, my walls crumbling. His face twisted for a moment—shock? Hurt?-- before he smoothed it back into something more neutral. "I know that's hard to hear, and it's not that I don't trust you. I just . . . I can't tell you, for reasons. It's nothing bad, just family business that I can't really share." 

Evan nodded, chewing at his lip. I could tell that he wanted to ask me more, but he was holding himself back, respecting my boundaries. 

"I'm sorry for lying to you before," I said. 

"It's okay, I understand. Thank you for telling me the truth—or some of it, now." He held his hand out for a fistbump. "Friends, still?" 

I smiled and reached out to brush my knuckles against his. "Yeah. Friends."