In The Heat of the Moment

She’d stolen his headphones again.

Aaron paused on the threshold, peering into the living room beyond the glass doors. Wafting his face with a comic book, he managed to loosen his collar. Even so, sweat pulsed through the pores of his skin, almost drowning his senses in the stench of ammonia.

He really wasn’t built for this weather.

Panting, he stepped toward the grand armchair which sat adjacent to the bookshelf on the far side of the room. The armchair where his sister, Martha, was typing on her bright pink laptop under the watchful of the wisteria which had begun to creep in through the front window.

At thirteen, his sister had reached peak annoyance and he was one breath away from smashing laptop to smithereens. It wasn’t enough that she’d won the English Award at school, came second in an international essay competition and claimed the starring role of ‘Sandy’ in Grease last year. Even though he’d practiced for weeks and weeks for the role of Danny, and he hadn’t even made the cut to be a supporting character. His Drama Teacher, Miss Olsen, said he’d be better off as a dancer, but even she knew he had two left feet.

Aaron scowled as his reflection in the too-clean window glass. Not only was it scorching outside, but Martha did not seem to notice the humidity or the sun as it bruised the clouds. She sat in a teal tank top and pale green shorts, casually sipping at a glass of orange juice. Even then, she refused to stop typing.

Their parents called her a literary genius. Sometimes, they called him kiddo, even though he was at least two years older. Most days, they called him Aaron and nothing more.

Aaron sighed. It wasn’t that he abhorred her using his headphones (as if she didn’t already have everything), it was the fact that she repeatedly took them from his desk without asking. Not only that, but when returned, they were always scuffed.

This was the last straw.

For all those years at Parents’ Evening, where he’d sat between his Doctor Mother and his Lawyer Father, listening to his teachers as they scrambled for something to say. For all those years he’d had to listen to his sister’s friends, her online colleagues, her teachers, their parents, singing her praises. It was a song which had been over-played for far too long.

He was the eldest. He had to revise for months and months just to get anything higher than a D. She seemed to breathe words and equations as if they were oxygen. He found biology impossible; she’d completed his homework for him, without even asking.

“I’m not stupid,” he told her once. They’d been standing on the landing. And Martha had only glanced at him and walked away. As if he wasn’t even worth talking to. As if he were nothing. He would be nothing, he realised. His sister was one novel away from winning the Nobel Prize for Literature. Her poetry anthology had been accepted by a publishing company last week, though she was currently waiting for their Father to vet the institution. Scams were rampant. He hissed to himself. She deserved them. She deserved to be lifted to the sky before being dropped in the mud.

Sweat coagulating on his shirt, Aaron stalked to stand in front of his sister. Martha did not look up; she continued to type, her fingers kissing the keys so slightly it were as if her hands were flying. Unlike Aaron, she was delicate, the swan to his Jackdaw. Her grades were perfect across the board, whereas his grades were a mountain range. She always smiled, always so beautiful. He frowned and he’d been told his resting face was off-putting. Aaron huffed a small, pathetic laugh. Of course, his sister hadn’t noticed him standing in front of her – she was an artist. That’s what their parents always said. She had the biggest bedroom in the house because she needed her space, even though she spent most of her time down here, by the living room window. He glanced down. Occasionally, her foot tapped the rhythm of whatever music she was listening to. With his headphones.

The air was a weight on his chest, forcing the air from his lungs. In moments, he lurched, yanking the headphones down to his sister’s neck. For a moment, she continued to type, but eventually looked up.

“Decided to notice me at last, have you?” he snapped. Martha sighed and set her laptop onto the laminated wood floors. In the living room, there used to be a mauve carpet, the kind which Aaron had sat upon for hours, reading. But the moment Martha said the carpet was too bright, her parents had it replaced with slippery wooden flooring. Another bullet in the chamber. Another reason to hate her.

“You should have introduced yourself properly,” said Martha. “Rather than standing over me like a spectre. You can’t except me to notice you if you don’t ask me to”. Thirteen. Such a smart mouth. Aaron chuckled bitterly and turned to lean on the windowsill. His palms were almost waxen; it seemed that the more windows they opened, the hotter the house became. Yet Martha sat as if the sun, as if the hot air couldn’t touch her. Her skin was smooth, pale as it had been when she was a baby. Rather than her hair being plastered to her hair, it curled around her shoulders in a golden swirl.

“You shouldn’t have taken my headphones,” he snapped.

“You weren’t using them. Besides,” she added. “I thought it was customary for a younger sister to annoy her older brother”. He laughed, wild and desperate.

“Oh, I think you’ve got that covered”. Martha frowned.

“What do you mean?” Throwing his hands in the air, Aaron dripped sweat onto those ridiculous laminated wood panels.

“You really don’t know? Don’t act so innocent. You may be thirteen, but you’re no Angel. I know what you think of me. You flounce around, lording your success over me like I’m an idiot. I’m not an idiot, I’m not stupid”.

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Martha said softly. He snarled.

“Don’t patronise me”. His hands clenched and the sun seemed to reach through the window with fingers of flame.

“I wish,” he breathed. “I wish you weren’t so perfect. It feels like Mom only had you to compare to me and make me look like a failure. I wish you’d just melt!” It wasn’t fair – for Martha to sit there, unperturbed by the heat and the sun and the sweltering air which filtered in through the open windows and doors. She deserved to melt like those silly candles on the mantlepiece, the kind which smelt of pine needles or the open ocean. He turned to leave, chest heaving. Aaron knew he’d already said too much. Too much to take back, too much to pretend that he wasn’t about to cry.

“Aaron. Wait”. He only half-turned. Martha slowly unfurled herself from the chair. When she stood, her eyes had taken on a haunted look. He scoffed. There was a reason she’d won an Award for Best Actress.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he snapped.

“I didn’t know you felt that way”. He stopped. Briefly, he stopped.

“I’m sorry,” she continued. “And I don’t ignore you. I’m afraid. Afraid of how much you hate me. In truth, I hate that I’m standing in the way. The last thing I want is for you to be unhappy. That’s why I took the headphones. To get you to find me, so I could see you. See my big brother. Please, Aaron. Don’t leave. I pretend to have a heart of stone, of an academic, but Mom forgets. Dad forgets. I’m thirteen years-old, Aaron. I can’t remember the last time I went out with people my own age and not talent agents who look at me as if I’m a chocolate bar they can snatch from the shelf.”

Aaron stopped breathing. Only for a moment. He turned to face Martha, whose face was crumpled in anguish. The sun, a poached egg in the sky, seared through the window, the curtains, crowning Martha’s head in a golden halo.

“Aaron, please. I’m not lying. Aaron— What’s happening to me? Aaron?” His eyes widened. His sister was choking. Coughing, spluttering. In fact, Martha was dribbling. Rather, her skin was dribbling. No, it was more than that. Aaron stepped back, a scream caught in his throat.

Martha was melting.

His sister was melting. Right in front of his eyes.

“Martha! Mom? Dad? Get help. Someone please, help us!” He was shouting, but no one was coming, and Martha’s face had soon become a tangled mass of melted skin. Her eyeballs dropped from their sockets like twin marbles, rolling down her cheeks. He reached out to catch her arms – they dribbled onto his shirtsleeves, falling through him. Looking down, her socks had melted into her shoes, her ankles into her toes. Her skin was wax or chocolate in the microwave. And what was left of her face… It was swirling in a silent, agonised cry.

“Someone. Please. Help us!” Aaron was shouting, over and over and over again. No one came.

And he could almost hear the sun, a beating heart in the sky, grinning as it ripped the most precious thing from his life.

From the pile of melted skin which had once been his sister, Aaron lifted up a pair of black headphones.

And he screamed.