"Oh, honey, I know it's incredibly strange," Phil whispered, his eyes wide with a mix of wonder and fatherly pride. "It's like seeing a unicorn in the wild! But look at them. They aren't fighting. They aren't pulling each other's hair or calling each other names. It's actually kind of refreshing! Let them have a moment. Let them bond."
Claire hesitated, looking back at us. The exhaustion of the day was clearly weighing on her, and the prospect of not having to break up a screaming match was incredibly tempting.
She let out a soft sigh, her tense shoulders dropping. A look of maternal enlightenment washed over her face.
"Okay," Claire whispered back to Phil, before raising her voice slightly to address us. "Okay, you guys do whatever this is. But be sure to fall asleep soon. Don't be up late reading, okay? I want both of those lights within an hour."
"We will, Mom," I nodded obediently.
"Goodnight, kids! Love you!" Phil beamed, giving us two enthusiastic thumbs-ups before gently closing the bedroom door, leaving it open just a crack.
The heavy footsteps receded down the hallway as they finally headed to the master bedroom for the night.
The moment the coast was clear, Alex and I both dropped our fake, loving smiles. We just sat there in the quiet room, staring at each other in the dim yellow light of the reading lamp.
I gave a lazy shrug, reaching back under my pillow to retrieve my video game console. "Well, that was a close one. Back to business."
I flipped the screen open and immediately went back to playing.
Alex let out a long, loud groan of pure frustration, dropping her heavy book onto the mattress.
"Really, Luke?" she asked, her voice laced with exasperation. "Besides playing stupid video games and eating, do you honestly not do anything else? I sat here for an hour waiting to see your study methods! I want to see how my brother, who used to get his head stuck in the banister, suddenly knows high school mathematics!"
I sighed, pausing my game and resting the console on my chest. I looked at her tired, frustrated face. She was a genius, but she was still a little girl who was desperately trying to figure out a puzzle she couldn't solve. I could understand her frustration. My sudden personality shift was the equivalent of a glitch in the Matrix for her.
"Okay, Alex. Relax," I said, putting my hands up in surrender. "Ask me anything you want. Go ahead. Test me. But I'm going to warn you right now: I am not as smart as you think I am. I don't know everything. I'm not some secret alien supercomputer."
Alex's eyes instantly lit up with competitive fire. She crossed her legs, sitting up straight. "Fine. Challenge accepted. Question one: What is the primary difference between a covalent bond and an ionic bond in chemistry?"
I scratched my chin. Basic high school chemistry. Easy. "Covalent bonds share electrons between non-metal atoms. Ionic bonds involve the transfer of electrons from a metal to a non-metal, creating opposite charges that attract."
Alex blinked, slightly surprised by my immediate, flawless answer. But she recovered quickly. "Okay. Question two: Who was the principal author of the Declaration of Sentiments in 1848, and what was its primary purpose?"
Uh oh. My college major was definitely not American History. I vaguely remembered a women's rights convention, but the names completely escaped me.
"Uh... Susan B. Anthony?" I guessed, wincing slightly. "And it was about... voting?"
"Wrong," Alex said, a triumphant smirk returning to her face. "It was Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Convention. And while voting was included, it was primarily a demand for broader civil, social, and religious rights for women. You missed the core nuance."
I gave a conceding nod. "Fair enough. Hit me with the third."
"Question three," Alex said, her eyes narrowing as she pulled out the big guns. "Explain the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus."
I groaned, rubbing my temples. Calculus. The bane of my past life's existence. "Okay, look. I know it bridges derivatives and integrals. Basically, if you take the derivative of an integral of a function, you just get the original function back. It proves that integration and differentiation are inverse operations. I don't remember the exact mathematical proof, but that's the gist of it."
Alex stared at me for a long, silent moment. She analyzed my answers, processing the data. I got the science right, totally failed the history, and gave a very 'lazy college student' summary of the advanced math.
She wasn't looking at a superhuman genius. She was looking at someone who had incredibly specific pockets of advanced knowledge, but massive, gaping holes in others.
Slowly, she nodded in understanding. The intense, interrogating aura around her faded away. She let out a long breath, her shoulders slumping as she picked her book back up, though she didn't open it.
"I guess you really aren't an alien," she murmured quietly, almost sounding a little disappointed.
"Told you," I chuckled softly, picking my game back up. "Now, shouldn't you be going back to your own bed? Mom said ten minutes."
Alex sighed, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. She looked suddenly very small and very tired.
"I just... I don't feel like sleeping right now," she admitted, her voice dropping to a quiet, vulnerable whisper. "Haley is snoring. It's not loud, but it's this high-pitched whistling sound, and once I hear it, I can't un-hear it. It drives me absolutely crazy."
She rested her chin on her knees, staring blankly at the wall. "Plus, she's a complete slob. I spent an hour today putting down a literal line of bright red tape right down the middle of the carpet to divide our space. I told her if her clothes crossed the line, I was throwing them in the trash. And what does she do? She intentionally kicks her dirty boots over the line just to spite me."
I paused my game again, putting it down on the nightstand completely. I raised my eyebrows, slightly surprised. The sarcastic, superior genius was suddenly peeling back the layers, revealing the incredibly stressed, frustrated little girl underneath.
"She fights with me over every little thing, Luke," Alex continued, her words tumbling out rapidly as if a dam had burst. "She fights me for the bathroom mirror. She fights me over the TV. She calls me a nerd because I actually care about my future. It is so exhausting. I just wanted one quiet place where I could read without someone throwing a lip gloss tube at my head."
She looked at me, her brown eyes shiny with unshed frustration.
I just sat there, listening quietly. In my past life, I was an only child. I never had to deal with sibling rivalry or sharing a tiny bedroom with someone who was my exact polar opposite. But right now, looking at my new little sister pouring out her problems, I realized something.
Being a big brother didn't mean solving all her problems with my adult brain. Sometimes, it just meant shutting up and letting her vent.
I nodded slowly, offering her a sympathetic, genuine smile.
"Yeah. Haley can be a total nightmare," I agreed softly. "But hey... at least my room doesn't have a red tape line. You can hang out and read here for a bit longer. Just... don't tell Mom."
Alex looked up at me. A small, real, highly appreciative smile broke through her grumpy exterior.
"Thanks, Luke," she whispered.
"Don't mention it," I said, leaning back into my pillows and closing my eyes. "Just keep it quiet. The king is resting."