Alex didn't even blink at my heavy sarcasm. She walked right past me, her plaid pajama bottoms swishing against the carpet, and marched straight toward the foot of my bed.
"You can continue your business, Luke," she announced, her tone completely businesslike. She sat down cross-legged on the edge of my mattress, adjusting her thick-rimmed glasses. "I am just here to observe. I will not interfere with your... methods. Just act like I am not even here."
With that, she opened her small, dense looking chapter book, resting it on her lap, and began to read. But I could see her dark eyes darting over the top of the pages every few seconds, tracking my every movement like a hawk watching a field mouse.
Act like you're not here? I thought, my right eye giving another phantom twitch. Right. Because having a genius middle-schooler staring unblinking at the side of my head is the pinnacle of a relaxing evening.
I let out a heavy sigh, running a hand through my messy blond hair. Since I had already cultivated the 'Dao of Sleep' for several hours earlier that afternoon following the football practice disaster, I wasn't actually feeling tired anymore. My battery is fully charged.
I looked around my room, feeling a bit bored. If she wanted to watch me perform miracles, she was going to be sorely disappointed.
I reached over to my messy nightstand, pushing aside a stack of old superhero comic books, and picked up my handheld video game console. I hit the power switch, the little screen glowing to life with a familiar chime, and I leaned back against my pillows. I crossed my legs, got comfortable, and began aggressively mashing the plastic buttons, completely losing myself in a retro platformer game.
From the corner of my eye, I saw Alex peek over the top of her book.
Her brow furrowed in deep bewilderment. She watched my thumbs flying across the D-pad, the faint pew-pew sounds coming from the console's tiny speakers. She sat there for a solid five minutes, waiting for me to pull out a secret blueprint, or a hidden physics textbook, or at least start muttering complex algorithms under my breath.
When I continued to do absolutely nothing but play my game, she puffed her cheeks out in childish display of frustration. She let out a loud, highly dramatic huff, shoved her glasses up her nose, and forcefully returned her focus to her reading.
Time passed in relative peace. The only sounds in the room were the soft turning of paper pages and the rhythmic clicking of plastic buttons. It was actually... weirdly comfortable.
Downstairs, the Dunphy household was going through its usual nightly shutdown procedures.
Every night after dinner and the evening news, Phil and Claire conducted what I liked to call the 'Parental Night Patrol'. It was their routine sweep of the second floor to ensure that all the lights were out, teeth were brushed, and all three of their chaotic offspring were actually in bed instead of sneaking out the window or burning the house down.
I heard the faint creak of the wooden staircase as they made their way up.
First, they stopped at the girls' bedroom—the room Haley and Alex were forced to share. From the hallway, the parents peeked inside. The room was a disaster zone on one side and a sterile laboratory on the other, cleanly divided down the middle.
I could faintly hear Claire sighing from the hallway. Haley was sprawled out diagonally across her bed, a fashion magazine draped over her face, snoring lightly with her headphones still tangled around her neck. But when Claire's gaze shifted to the other side of the room, she stopped.
Alex's perfectly made bed was completely empty.
"Phil," I heard Claire whisper urgently from the hall. "Where is Alex?"
"Maybe she's in the bathroom? Or downstairs getting a glass of water?" Phil whispered back. "Don't wake Haley up, or she'll complain about her beauty sleep for the next three days."
The soft footsteps moved away from the girls' door and headed straight toward mine.
My bedroom door was still slightly ajar, casting a thin sliver of warm yellow light out into the dark hallway.
The door was pushed open a few more inches.
I didn't immediately look up from my screen. I was right in the middle of a boss fight. But my peripheral vision caught Phil and Claire freezing in the doorway, completely paralyzed by the sheer, unprecedented strangeness of the scene in front of them.
There I was, casually lounging against my pillows in my pajamas, aggressively playing a video game. And right at the foot of my bed sat Alex, peacefully reading a book. No one was screaming. No one was throwing things. No one was actively trying to ruin the other's life.
It was a statistical anomaly in the Dunphy house.
"Luke? Alex?" Claire finally spoke, her voice laced with profound shock and a heavy dose of suspicion.
I practically jumped out of my skin.
My gamer reflexes kicked in, but this time it was out of pure, instinctual fear of getting caught breaking the 'no screens past bedtime' rule. I instantly sat up, shoving the handheld console under my pillow in a single, lightning-fast motion.
I snapped my head toward the door, my eyes wide, fully expecting a lecture about the time, my posture, or my life choices. Alex also flinched, quickly lowering her book to her lap.
Claire stepped fully into the room, looking back and forth between the two of us. She crossed her arms, her maternal lie-detector practically buzzing.
"Alex... what are you doing in here?" Claire asked, her tone entirely baffled. She narrowed her eyes at me. "Did Luke do something to you? Did he steal something of yours? Did you both get into a fight and now you're having a silent standoff?"
Claire's brain simply couldn't process the strange, quiet atmosphere. To her, a lack of drama meant that something far more sinister was brewing beneath the surface.
I needed to defuse this bomb before Claire started searching the room for contraband or forced us into family therapy.
"Oh, no, Mom, it's nothing like that," I lied smoothly, pasting on my best, most innocent smile. I gave an exaggerated, casual shrug.
"Alex just had a question about... um... a concept we were talking about earlier. After I cleared up her doubt, she said she was bored, so she thought she could read me a chapter of her story as a 'thank you'. Sisterly bonding and all that."
At the foot of the bed, Alex's fake, polite smile completely froze on her face. Her eye twitched. She looked at me like she wanted to strangle me with her bare hands for suggesting she needed my help with a concept, but understanding the precarious situation we were in, she swallowed her pride and nodded stiffly.
"Yes," Alex ground out through gritted teeth, forcing her frozen smile wider. "Just... sisterly bonding. Reading a story. To my... dear brother."
Claire looked completely unconvinced. "Oh... okay. But guys, it is way past your bedtime. You both have school tomorrow, and Luke, you have morning football practice. Alex, you should go back to your bed."
Alex scrambled to her feet, hugging her book to her chest. "Oh! Yes. I will go. Just... give me a minute to finish this paragraph. I was right in the middle of a sentence."
Claire opened her mouth to argue, but Phil suddenly placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
Phil gently pulled Claire a step back toward the hallway, leaning in close to whisper in her ear. Naturally, in the quiet house, I could hear every single word of his 'secret' whisper.