Love and Nintendo

RUTH DANIELL

Home for Christmas, I tell my brother as little as I can: He raped me.

I just wanted you to know now.

A video game on pause on the basement TV, colours muted. It won’t occur to me until later that it was several Christmases ago that it happened: my first homecoming from university, what might have been the first of many long-distance relationship reunions and what was, instead—well, what it was. I don’t know the exact date—don’t want that kind of anniversary in my head.

It’d be worse than remembering that first boyfriend’s birthday each year.

I don’t want, also, my brother to think differently about me now, though

I know he will. He hides his face with a pillow. Do you have any questions?

He doesn’t. He sets the pillow back down on the couch. We un-pause the game. The TV’s colours brighten.

We take turns being Mario. It’ll be ages before we run out of lives.