“What the hell? Hell?” my brother repeated.

Jake laughed and I started to apologize. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to . . .”

He laughed even more when the girl holding on to him started giggling.

“No need to say sorry,” he said for the second time that day.

I stopped talking and pursed my lips tightly for fear that something else might fly out. An awkward lull forced itself into the conversation, and seemed to linger there until I couldn’t take it a second longer and had to break it.

“Zac is my brother,” I gushed. “He’s my brother.” I’m not sure why I repeated it, but I did.

“That’s cool.” Jake smiled down at Zac. “He’s awesome.”

My jaw loosened. People seldom called my brother awesome, and if they did, it certainly didn’t sound as sincere as when Jake said it.

“This is my sister, Lisa.” He looked down at the girl who had attached herself to him tightly. She had the same blue eyes as his and her hair was up in cute ponytails, flecks of golden curls in the sea of brown, just like his.

“What do you say?” Jake asked.

“Nice to meet you,” she said overly loudly with a smile so big her eyes disappeared into her cheeks.

“Nice to meet you too,” I replied, and then without warning, she hugged me.

I glanced at Zac. I knew what he was thinking. He didn’t like it when other people showed me affection; he got strangely jealous, even though he didn’t show much affection himself. When she finally let go of me, I walked over to Zac and held my hand out. He hesitated for a few moments and then took it and moved to my side possessively, giving Lisa a scowl as he went. Sometimes he can come across as rude, but he’s not, I swear, he just struggles to express certain emotions. This is one of the hardest parts of having a brother like Zac—few get to see the boy that I do. They only see the “bad” and make their assumptions based on that. I’m always trying to convince them of his other side, the side that isn’t too abrupt and doesn’t scream in public if he’s having a sensory meltdown. The world is cheated out of this other version of my brother, and maybe that’s one of the saddest things about it all.

“Zac played an amazing game of hoop ball today,” Jake said, breaking my train of thought.

“Hoop ball?” I asked.

“It’s a combination of Hula-Hooping, tennis, soccer, baseball, and volleyball. We all made the rules up together.”

“We?”

“I volunteer here once a week, doing sports with the kids,” he qualified.

“And he’s the best,” his sister quickly added. “The best.”