Living Dangerously

“You call that living dangerously?”  I whispered to my brother.  “Dangerous?  You have got to be kidding me.” 

Eric stared at me and didn’t smile and didn’t respond.  I knew what he was thinking and I didn’t like it.  He was going to do the same thing over and over again until someone else noticed. For him, sneaking out was dangerous. If he was caught, everything he had worked for would come falling down. He had worked tirelessly for years to keep his grades up for the sole intention of getting a free ride to Harvard. Sports was never going to get him to college and as much as he wanted to play baseball forever, he wasn’t spectacular. He could maybe get into a Division III school for baseball, but there was no athletic scholarships at that level. 

I knew he was sneaking out again. I could tell by the clothes he was wearing and the way he had acted at dinner. The nights he snuck out his bedroom window were the nights he talked the most at dinner.  Sneaking out only for the prospect to get candy.  A certain type of ‘candy’ that I had suspicions was laced with drugs of some sort. It was the only thing that could possibly explain his erratic behavior as of late. 

Deep down, I think I knew where he was going and why he would continue going. It was the reason I wore an ankle monitor all these years later.