Stay in and get takeout

Date: Wednesday, July 23rd

T-Minus: 46 Hours to Claim Day

Time: 19:00 - 20:45

Location: The New Apartment (Living Room), Pacific Coast, California

"Delivery it is," Alex decided, pulling his phone from his pocket. He tapped the screen a few times, pulling up a local directory. "I saw a Chinese place two blocks over when I was moving my stuff in last month. Let's get a ridiculous amount of lo mein and potstickers to inaugurate the apartment."

"Extra spicy on the noodles," Jen requested, already turning her attention to a large, heavy-duty plastic tote labeled 'High Priority - Fragile' in Marjorie Taylor's meticulous handwriting.

While Alex stepped toward the kitchen counter to place the call, the sharp, metallic zip of Jen's box cutter slicing through heavy packing tape broke the quiet of the apartment. The living room was a cardboard labyrinth, with towers of storage bins creating narrow, temporary hallways across the plush grey carpet. As Jen pulled the interlocking flaps back, the air in the room shifted, trading the fresh, salty humidity of the Pacific for the dry, unmistakable scent of old paper, binding glue, and the baked wood dust of their Arizona garage.

Alex finished the call and walked over, kneeling beside her. "Forty-five minutes," he announced, his deep voice carrying a fond amusement as he looked at the open box. "Alright, let us see what Mom deemed critical for our first night of survival."

He reached inside, pulling away layers of crinkling bubble wrap. Sitting cross-legged across from him, Jen watched as he carefully extracted a stack of framed photographs and wrapped canvases. She reached out, her fingers brushing against a particularly small, rectangular frame wrapped in faded newspaper.

"I will take that one," Jen offered, carefully peeling the tape back.

The paper fell away, revealing a simple, cheap wooden frame protecting a sheet of faded construction paper. Drawn in heavy, wax crayon was a crude but earnest depiction of two figures. One was a tall stick figure colored entirely in yellow and blue, featuring a jagged cape and the words 'Super-Alex' scrawled above it in uneven, child-like lettering. Standing behind the hero was a smaller figure colored in deep brown with a chaotic scribble of black for hair, labeled 'Princess-Jen.'

A burst of bright, genuine laughter escaped Jen's lips. She held the frame up, presenting the ancient artwork to its creator. "I cannot believe Mom actually packed this. You drew this for my sixth birthday, right after you decided you were going to be a superhero when you grew up."

Alex looked up, a flush of embarrassed warmth creeping up the back of his neck, though a soft, undeniable smile broke across his face. He rubbed the back of his neck, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners. "I was ten. My artistic phase was brief, but clearly impactful. I stand by the composition, though. The cape was a solid structural choice."

Jen lowered the frame, resting it gently in her lap. Her laughter faded into a quiet, heavy sentimentality as her thumb traced the edge of the wood. The drawing was clumsy, but the intent behind those heavy crayon strokes was a foundational truth of her existence.

'He has always been the one standing in front of me,' Jen thought, her gaze shifting from the framed paper to the broad, powerful shoulders of the man kneeling opposite her. 'Even when we were kids, and some jerk in the schoolyard would make a comment about how we did not look like real siblings. They would point at his pale skin and blonde hair, and then point at my skin and my curls, asking stupid, cruel questions. Alex would never even yell. He would just step in front of me, pull me closer against his side, and stare them down until they walked away. He never had to say a single word to prove we belonged together.'

"I remember the day Jim and Marjorie brought you home," Alex said quietly, his voice dropping an octave as he watched the memory play out across her face. He leaned back against a stack of boxes, letting his hands rest on his thighs. "The house in Phoenix was always nice, but it was too quiet. Just me and two adults trying to figure out how to be a family. And then suddenly, there was this tiny, terrified girl with the wildest hair I had ever seen, hiding behind Mom's leg."

Jen looked up, her hazel eyes locking onto his. "I was terrified. I did not know what to do with a big brother."

"You figured it out pretty fast," Alex countered, his smirk returning. "Took you about three days to realize you could blame the broken cookie jar on me and get away with it." He paused, the humor settling into something far more profound and grounding. "We do not share blood, Jen. The world is always going to look at us and see the differences first. But that never mattered inside those walls, and it does not matter here. We share a name, we share a life, and we share a family. You are my sister."

"I know, Al," Jen whispered, her throat suddenly tight.

Before she could say another word, the sharp, electronic buzz of the apartment intercom on the wall beside the front door shattered the quiet intimacy of the moment.

---

By eight-thirty, the chaotic landscape of the living room had been marginally tamed, and the heavy scent of garlic, soy sauce, and fried dough lingered pleasantly in the air.

Alex sat on the carpet, snapping the white cardboard flaps of a Chinese takeout container shut. He gathered the empty boxes of lo mein and sweet and sour pork, stacking them neatly next to a greasy pile of napkins. Jen sat a few feet away, leaning her back against the base of the oversized, charcoal-grey sofa they had wrestled up the stairs an hour prior. She had changed into an oversized, worn college sweatshirt, her legs stretched out over the pristine, untouched fibers of the new carpet.

With the trash cleared to the side, Alex shifted his attention to the low entertainment console. He threaded a thick optical cable into the back of the newly unboxed soundbar. With a final, satisfying click, a small white LED blinked to life on the front of the speaker. He reached up, blindly tapping the screen of his phone resting on the wood surface.

A soft, rhythmic acoustic guitar melody drifted into the room, the bass vibrating gently through the floorboards. It was an old album, a collection of instrumental tracks that Mr. Taylor used to play on Sunday mornings while making pancakes. The familiar notes instantly shifted the atmosphere of the apartment, stripping away the sterile feeling of a new space and replacing it with a profound, lived-in warmth.

Alex pushed himself up from the floor and walked over, dropping heavily onto the carpet right beside Jen. He leaned back against the couch, their shoulders pressing firmly together. The sliding glass door across the room had been left open just a fraction, allowing a steady, cool draft of ocean air to filter through the screen, mingling with the lingering scent of their dinner and the faint, sweet smell of the night-blooming jasmine outside.

Reaching over, Alex picked up a tall, condensation-slicked can of Arizona-brand iced tea they had unearthed from a pantry box to wash down the spicy noodles. It was barely lukewarm, having missed the cooler entirely during the drive, but he popped the tab anyway and took a long drink before passing the heavy aluminum can to Jen.

She took it, her fingers brushing against the chilled metal, but she didn't drink right away. She stared straight ahead at the blank, off-white wall opposite them. The single floor lamp they had plugged in cast a sharp, unified shadow of their two silhouettes against the drywall, blending their shapes into a single, immovable block of darkness.

"Do you ever wonder what it would have been like if we stayed?" Jen asked, her voice quiet, almost lost beneath the strumming of the acoustic guitar. "If we had just gone to the state college, kept our old rooms, stayed in the desert?"

Alex turned his head slightly, resting the back of his skull against the soft fabric of the sofa. He looked at the side of her face, tracing the soft curve of her jawline in the dim light.

"No," Alex answered, his tone completely devoid of hesitation. "I do not wonder about it at all. If we stayed, we would be safe. We would have home-cooked meals and laundry done for us, and we would never have to worry about rent. But we would be stagnant, Jen. We would just be playing the roles of kids playing at college."

He reached out, his large hand wrapping gently over her knee, giving it a firm, grounding squeeze.

"This apartment," Alex continued, his voice dropping to a low, protective rumble as his gaze swept across the dim, quiet room. "This is the real start. There is no safety net out here. It is just you and me against whatever the coast throws at us."

Jen finally raised the can to her lips, taking a slow sip of the sweet, lukewarm tea. The sugar hit her tongue at the exact moment the cool ocean draft swept across the back of her neck. She let out a long, shuddering breath, the last remnants of her travel anxiety draining out of her muscles. She shifted her weight, sliding down slightly until she could rest her head comfortably against the solid, immovable wall of her brother's shoulder.

The acoustic guitar played on, a soft and steady rhythm in the dark. Alex rested his head against hers, his thumb tracing a slow, absentminded circle against the denim of her jeans, listening to the relentless, heavy crash of the waves against the distant shore.