Ask Him Why Read Online Free

now.”
    I jumped up and scrambled for the stairs. Like a coward. Like exactly what I hate the most. What I try hardest never to be.
    Before I could get out of that rec room, Joseph said, “I missed you, Mr. Universe.”
    I stopped dead. Frozen. I wanted to say, “I missed you, too, Joseph.” I opened my mouth. I swear I thought that’s what would come out. I was surprised when all I said was, “You did?”
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “Thanks,” I said, and ran for the stairs again.
    As I made my way back to my room, I wondered if it was true that Joseph had shamed all of us. I didn’t figure it was. Because I didn’t feel shamed.
    I didn’t know how short that reprieve would be.
    That’s when I remembered I had a note from the principal. And I hadn’t shown it to my parents. And I damn well wasn’t going to. Not that night, anyway.
    These were extenuating circumstances, whether the powers that be at school understood or not.

    I woke up at about eleven p.m. with Joseph in my room. Which was not something that had ever happened before. So I responded with fear. An icy, cutting little ball of it wedged into my gut. Though there was no real reason why I should have been afraid of my brother.
    Maybe I was afraid of what he’d come to say.
    I sat partway up in bed, holding the blankets against my chest with one arm. I’m not sure why.
    He was leaning his forearms on my dresser, spinning the little planets on the mobile solar system that lived there. It spun around on a base. Well, not spun all on its own. It waited for someone like Joseph to come along and spin it.
    It wasn’t the only solar system in the room. There was a much more elaborate system overhead. So I guess it was redundant. But I was definitely into more space-related stuff than necessary. My view on life in general, I think, was that anything would have been better than not enough.
    Now that I think about it, that might have been my approach to all of life. It might still be.
    “Joseph,” I said.
    He glanced over his shoulder at me and said nothing.
    It was dark, of course. But not too dark to see him. My room was on the second floor. And we were the only two-story house on the block, so no one could look in. So I never kept my curtains drawn. I left them open to look up at the stars. At least, those few that could overpower the light pollution of the Orange County suburbs. The moon was three days waning. Its light seeped through the window. Enough that I could see my brother turn his face to me. Not enough that I could make out his expression or the look in his eyes.
    “Why are you in my room?” I asked him.
    He didn’t answer for several beats. Then he said, “Is it not okay?”
    “I’m not saying you can’t. Just . . . you know. You never did before.”
    Another painfully long silence.
    I was tempted to fill it. I didn’t give in to that temptation.
    “I . . . ,” he began. Then he stalled again, for many seconds. “I know you heard what Brad said. I felt bad about it. You know. You all huddled under the bed listening to him say a thing like that. Not that it’s very surprising coming from Brad. But I just wanted to make sure . . .” Another brief stall. “. . . that you didn’t feel the same. Like he obviously does. Like I shamed you. I don’t want you to be ashamed of what I did.”
    “I don’t even know what you did.”
    Joseph sighed. The sigh seemed to collapse part of him. The area around his chest and shoulders. The part that should have held air, or at least been supported by a couple of lungfuls of it.
    He pulled away from the dresser. Came and sat on the edge of my bed.
    “I refused to go out on a raid,” he said.
    “Oh,” I said. When he didn’t go on, I asked, “Can you do that?”
    “No,” he said. “You can’t.” Then he laughed. But not the way people laugh when something’s genuinely funny. “Well, of course you can . I mean, nobody can stop you from doing what you’re going to do. But it’s