.:For Now Is Time To Grow:. [open]

Had beef stew the third time this week. Briar was the one to make it, since she said she likes to learn how to cook. Best way to fetch her a boy worth some spit, so she says. I don’t much like her talking about catching boys anyway, but then she tells me that I don’t get to tell her how to live her life. I want pa to set her straight, but he hasn’t come back from his rides out to the other side of the district. It’s been almost a whole year since I saw him last. And when I do see him, I’m sure he’s gonna smell like smoke and whiskey—mumble ‘bout how things are getting harder for us. Seems like men are moving in on the little fortune we had, the cows and horses he used to help bring from one side to the other.

She’s gonna be trouble before too long. I can see it when I stand behind her now, and she looks up at the sky. She’s got her own little cigarettes she smokes. Heard that there was a Tansy that gets her tobacco, though I thought they’d all flown from this place. Shit has a way of getting stuck under your foot when you least expect it. She left me alone tonight after another row. I told Briar she got to be careful the company she keep. She said that’s for little girls to hear. She’s a grown woman now, getting her monthly visits. Meant that she could go and make her own choices, not with her little brother tagging along, too.

Feels like the two of us are cracking up.

Used to be that we would do it all together, you know? The walks to the schoolhouse, or helping keep care of the chicken coop. Pappy and Gammy weren’t too sweet on us, but we made our own imaginary games. Guess all that has to go away when you grow, just never imagined the two of us to split apart. She was born just a minute before me, that’s the only minute I thought we’d spend apart. Feels like she’s running forward now, and me? I’m stuck watching my own shadow, waiting for it to grow. She’s the one that doesn’t take things seriously though. Girl’s gonna get herself caught up in a mess, and I’m not gonna be there to bail her out when it’s too late.

Some of the older boys told me about a spot down the way where I could get my hands on a bottle or two of moonshine. It’s tradition for a boy on his fourteenth birthday to have all his friends around, taking shots of shit that could practically have you go blind. Except tonight is cold and the ground already has frost. Boys down the way said that they didn’t want to go out until the sun’s out longer. Briar came and went like a ghost. Her idea of a toast was just after the sun went down, drinking a shot and making a face like the world was gonna come back up and out her throat.

She left me just after sunset. I could have gone home, watched some of the games. I know Riven and Ophelia haven’t gone yet—but they don’t look like the girls who’s face we’ll be celebrating come weeks from now. Instead, I find the strength sitting against the fence, soaking up the cold and the wind. Let myself grow a year older under these same stars, watching the great big hills on the horizon glow a brighter shade with the moon overhead. Always thought birthdays were meant to be lonely, seeing as they only remind me of what I lost. Well—at least I have something to drink to.

So I take a sip and make a face, hopeful for another year. No reason to be much of anything else, anyway.