Marcus’s office was a comfy, claustrophobic room. It was a space fit for luring his clients into his company’s unrelenting financial grip, and every day he would sit behind that mahogany desk, leaning forward in his over-padded swivel chair, a plastic smile pinned to his face as he went on explaining the process of real estate purchasing to wide-eyed, fresh-out-of-college overachievers, the obnoxious kind who find it necessary to go right for a house when they’re still fresh-out-of-college.
     Marcus had been one of those overachievers. It was one of the main reasons Brody couldn’t stand being summoned to his brother’s HQ. That room represented everything Marcus was -- and everything Brody never would be. In the four years since his community college career and ultimate bachelor degree, he had stayed in exactly one living space: the attic of a run-down warehouse just outside the town, in the area where the county officials had once attempted to develop a neighborhood of thriving factories and stores, and had only succeeded in leaving multiple shelters for stoners and stray cats.
     Brody didn’t fit into either of those categories, but he’d have been damned if he’d asked his brother for help in finding a place to stay. So he looked around, and when he found a mostly-empty would-be storage unit a couple of blocks from his job at the time, he made an offer. The property owner was eager to rent out, obviously. Brody’d only met with him in person once, and he was pretty sure the sweaty man had been nearly dangerously intoxicated at the time.
     Since then, all of their interactions had been electronic. Neither complained or asked much of the other; even their emails were seldom. Brody tried to be a courteous tenant. Not because he cared what his landlord thought of him -- he didn’t give a rat’s ass about whether or not that alcoholic pig favored him. No, he kept the place tidy and in working condition because he’d spent most of his life promising to not become the assholes who’d always surrounded him. All of the self-centered, egotistical, lying, deceiving, manipulative, real estate agents that he constantly met.
     He wasn’t the smartest man, he knew, but at least he had common sense. He knew when he was supposed to turn on his blinker, and when to change lanes, and how to be nice to a waiter, or any server for that matter, since they’re wasting their freaking time on you, so why can’t you be bothered to feel even an ounce of gratitude?
     People had always seemed… insignificant to him, as creatures in general. They always seemed to make the worst decisions, and they had no regard for any other species whatsoever. They were self-indulgent to no end, entertained by each other’s pain, and upset by the stupidest of things…
     Needless to say, Brody preferred to keep to himself. Everyone he’d ever met knew that. It was why he didn’t have any friends, why he couldn’t keep a job, why he’d lost contact with everyone in his family except his brother, who wouldn’t be able to survive without serving his daily dose of I-told-you-so to his lesser little sibling.
     Marcus called everyday, and Brody usually didn’t answer. Recently he’d been thinking about disconnecting his phone. He didn’t have the patience for conversation. And he didn’t need to be wasting his money. Couldn’t afford it.
     But this particular morning, he’d called three times, each exactly a half hour away from the other. His precision made Brody want to answer just to yell at him.
     So Brody’d done just that. “My god, what is it?” he gritted. His jaw clenched. It was nine in the morning, and he’d barely gotten up. His morning coffee sat on the foldable table in front of him, gripped in his left hand. Later today he’d suffer heartburn from his decision to take it black, but for now he didn’t care. He was much too exhausted, and the sun was much too bright, stinging the floor through the boarded windows.
     “Brody,” Marcus’s smile was evident through the phone. Jesus, does he always have to smile? Picturing his brother’s sneer made Brody’s fist clench harder around his ceramic mug. They’d shared many an argument, but recently Marcus had been pushing him just to his limits. One of these days, Brody swore he was going to walk straight to Barkson Real Estate, march up the worn flight of stairs to reach room 204, and leave a permanent imprint of his knuckles on his brother’s smirking face.
     “You answered. How are you?”
     Brody’s frown intensified. “What do you want?” He wouldn’t have called if he didn’t need anything. That’s the reason phones were invented, after all. To get other people to do things for you. To ask for a favor, to ask for time to speak, to ask, to take, to break, to intrude, to destroy….
     In the brief pause in conversation, Brody decided he was going to walk to the phone company tomorrow and cancel his payments. He didn’t need this harassment.
     “Could you come to my office? I need to talk to you,” he sighed.
     Brody brought the mug to his lips. The bitter heat calmed him, a bit. “I’m not buying a house, Mark. Give it up.”
     “That’s not---” 
     The coffee’s effect didn’t last for very long. Brody pushed himself out of his chair. All his life he’d had to live in his brother’s shadow, disappointing expectant teachers and parents, barely graduating community college when Marcus had breezed through the University of Pennsylvania, and then had moved back to Barkson, Maryland to look after his incompetent brother out of the goodness of his goddamned heart.  What gave Mark the right to believe he was better than Brody, just because he’d been better at following what other people wanted? Why would he get to tell him how to live, to punish him like this, just because Brody had the courage to be himself and to not please the insatiable expectations of others?
     “Don’t, Mark. I’m doing just fine on my own, and I don’t need your daily ‘check-ups,’ or your judgement, or your help, so why can’t you just leave me---”
     To his uneasy surprise, Marcus snapped back. “Damn it, Brody, can you just come down here? I’m not selling you a house, and I don’t give a crap what your personal life is like. Not right now.”  He hung up before Brody could offer his rebuttal. It was so unlike him to lose his cool, or to leave things with such a finality that almost left Brody no choice.
     Almost. It bothered him that Marcus would think he could control Brody’s actions just by hanging up the phone.
     Still… Brody was a curious man, when his stubbornness wasn’t too far shrouding his desires. A part of him wanted to tell Marcus to screw off. But the other part, the larger part, screamed at him to get to the bottom of this.
     He cursed under his breath, defeated and dreading as he took one final gulp of liquid energy and went to his room to get his shoes. If there was one thing he hated more than the selfishness of humanity, it was Marcus’s office.