My cedar door creaks as my older brother pushes his way into my neat room. Sure, there’s an oversized sweatshirt waiting to be folded into my closet, and a pair of slightly dusty, inside-out, leggings in the corner. But the pink cotton blanket on my bed is folded perfectly over the side, and the pillows are stacked corner to corner, leaning against the gray wood. Not that it will be perfect for much longer, given my brother’s in the room. From the mirror on my cluttered vanity that sits next to my closet, I see him slouch into the comfortable double mattress. From him simply sitting there, he wrinkles the blue comforter and causes one of the many pillows to fall on its face. He also causes the room to smell like sweat and teenager, but I know better than to yell for him to leave since I know he won’t. My brother won’t go unless he gets bored with me or my mom shouts at him from the foot of the staircase.

He gets bored after surveying my room once, like he always does, and pulls up TikTok,  pushing the volume button up all the way. The song to the latest trend starts blasting, and it clashes horribly with my OneRepublic playlist. I open my mouth to yell at him but think better of it since he won’t listen anyway. After I close my eyes for a second and take a deep breath, I grab my phone, clothed in navy blue, and pause my music. He glances at me when I do that, probably annoyed with me, since I’m ignoring him. He gets a mischievous glint in his eye that has me worried. Turning around on my bed and twisting my bedspread even more, he lies down and puts his big, sweaty, feet all over the pillow I sleep on. That’s the last straw. Standing from my plush stool, I march across the cream carpet to him and snatch his ankles and try to pull him back to a seated position. It takes me about two minutes to move his lower half off my bed. His legs are heavy! Once I do, I quickly release his ankles, take a deep breath, and shake out my sore arms. Big mistake on my part. Without even batting an eye my way, he swings his legs back up onto my pillows. Ugh!

 We repeat this somewhere between six to eight times before I give in. Sighing, I stare at my older brother, slightly disappointed. For being four years older than me, he sure is acting four years younger. Instead of trying to fight with his legs again, and lose again, I try the “work smarter not harder” tactic, and simply pull my pillow out from underneath his sweaty feet. He clearly doesn’t like that, but I just walk back to my vanity, feeling slightly accomplished.

“I thought you wanted me out, or have you come to terms that you’re just too weak,” my brother says slyly.

“I’m not weak, I just don’t waste my energy on dingbats who don’t have any manners,”

I say, taking his bait.

“Oh, I’ve always wanted to meet a dingbat. Where is it?” he replies with fake enthusiasm.

Pointing to the mirror mounted on the wall across from me, I say “Look in the mirror”

“Oh, sister, you wound me,” he says, feigning hurt.

“Good.”

“Yeah, go ahead. Keep twisting that knife into my heart,” he says, being so melodramatic.

I just roll my eyes at him and keep wrangling my hair up and down.

After a few moments of silence, he comments, “It's fine to admit that you're just a baby that can’t handle her big brother teasing her.” 

“That’s it.” That was the straw that broke the straw’s back, or in this case: patience.

Once again, getting off my plush stool, I make my way over to the bed, look him over, then drop a knee lightly down into his stomach. I then work to maneuver my way so that I’m straddling his waist and have him pinned down. He tries to build momentum to kick me in the back, but he fails because I wrapped my legs around his to limit their mobility. Grabbing his wrists, I also pin those down above his head so that he can’t push me. Step 1: done. All I have to do now is tickle him till he decides to leave. I try to push his wrists together to get an easier angle, but he must figure out what I’m trying to do because he’s resisting me hard, so hard, that it takes most of my energy to just keep my hold on him. I give up on my strategy, and when it feels best, I go in.

I reach for his armpits first since that’s usually where he’s most ticklish, but he squeezes his arms down too quick for me to get there, so I make the rash decision to go for his sides instead. I slide my hands down until I can squeeze his excess skin and muscle. He starts squirming almost automatically, and that gives me great pleasure. He squirms so much, though, that we end up toppling over the edge of the bed and tumbling onto the dusty white carpet. 

We end up turning when we land, hard, so that he now has the advantage of being on top, but I kick my flexible legs up before he gets his bearings, and lightly restrain his arms by my toes, but I am quickly working my ankles around his triceps. When my older brother realizes what I’m trying to do, he’s quick to lean forward so that my ankles slip back to the floor. He goes to tickle me in the armpits, but he’s always been terrible at tickling, so all he does is leave an opening for me to grab his wrists again, and flip us back over.

We fight for the top spot until we’re both exhausted and panting on the floor. After a minute or so, we both get up and fix our shifted clothing, and brush back hair out of our faces (me pulling hair out of my clothes and unwrapping it from around my neck). Afterward, he turns to me and murmurs

“I totally won that.”

“Ha! You wish.  You just don’t want to admit that you got beaten by your little sister.” I respond.

“Whatever you need to tell yourself.” He sarcastically replies

I just roll my eyes and start pushing him out of my room, saying, “You’ve bothered me enough for one day, you can leave now.”

“Thanks for helping me get my workout in,” He says pretending to flex his muscles as he’s

only a few feet from my door.

“Oh, so you were only using me so that you didn’t have to lift today, is that it?” I reply 

slightly hurt because as much as he annoys me, I like spending time with him.

“Well, that, and because quality time with my little sister isn’t as bad as it seems.” He says 

quickly before he shuts the door and finally leaves me to finish getting ready for the day.