The Coed is Brainwashed (Mind Control)
I slammed the car door and stared up at our family home, a modest two-story that had housed the Taylor clan for the last 20 years. The driveway gravel crunched under my sneakers as I hauled my weekend bag over my shoulder. Spring break. Five whole days away from the constant social juggling act that was college life.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Westlake University. I had the sorority sisters, the study groups that actually studied sometimes, and enough Instagram followers to make my high school self jealous. But keeping up the bubbly, effortless Ellie Taylor everyone expected was fucking exhausting.
Home was... different. There I could breathe.
The front door swung open before I reached it. Dad filled the doorframe, all six-foot-two of him, arms crossed over his chest. Even at forty-five, he turned heads at the hardware store he managed. The perpetual five o'clock shadow, the calloused hands, those deep-set eyes that seemed to evaluate everything. He didn't smile exactly, but his expression softened when he saw me.
"There she is," he said, voice like gravel. "Thought you'd be here an hour ago."
"Traffic on the interstate." I dropped my bag and wrapped my arms around his middle. He smelled like sawdust and that same aftershave he'd worn since Mom died eight years ago. His arms enveloped me completely.
Inside, the familiar sounds of gunfire and explosions echoed from the den. That was Noah, my middle brother, twenty-four and perpetually glued to whatever game had captured his attention that month. Despite the lean runner's build and the brain that got him through MIT with honors, he had forearms that could crack walnuts. Currently, he was working remotely for some tech company that paid him way too much money to solve problems nobody else understood.
"El!" he called without looking away from the screen. His fingers danced across the keyboard in a blur, but he managed to raise one hand in acknowledgment.
"Don't die on my account," I laughed, dropping onto the couch beside him. The character on screen did a complicated maneuver, taking out three enemies at once.
"Wouldn't dream of it," he said, the corner of his mouth quirking up. "How's the animation project coming? The one with the weird little forest creatures?"
I was surprised he remembered. "Turned it in yesterday. Professor said it was 'unexpectedly poignant.'"
The back door slammed, and heavy footsteps crossed the kitchen floor. My oldest brother, Ethan, appeared in the doorway, wiping sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his t-shirt, giving a brief glimpse of abs that looked like they were carved from stone. At twenty-seven, he ran our family's construction business with Dad. Unlike Noah's calculated precision, Ethan was all raw power. He had Mom's dark eyes, almost black, and a jaw that could cut glass.
"Princess is home," he said, the nickname somewhere between affectionate and teasing. "College hasn't eaten you alive yet?"
"Not for lack of trying," I quipped.
It struck me again how incredibly good-looking they all were in completely different ways. Dad with his weathered handsomeness, Noah with his intense focus and quiet charm, Ethan with his raw physicality. And yet, our house remained a testosterone island. No girlfriends, no dates mentioned, no wedding plans. Dad never remarried after Mom, which I got, but my brothers? It was weird. I'd asked Noah about it once, and he just shrugged and said something vague about "high standards."
Later, I escaped to my bedroomkept exactly as I left it when I moved to the dorms. I pulled out my journal from its hiding place behind my bookshelf and flipped to a fresh page. My journals were the one place where I didn't have to be perky, perfect Ellie. Where I could sketch the weird, sometimes dark images that popped into my head and write the thoughts I'd never say out loud.
The thing about keeping people at arm's length, I wrote, is eventually you forget how to let them closer. Even the ones who should be closest already.
I sketched a quick self-portrait, surrounded by three tall, shadowy figures. My family. So close we could touch, yet somehow just out of reach.
**
The rest of the day passed in familiar rhythms. Dad grilled steaks for dinner, rare in the middle just how we all liked them. Noah talked about some blockchain thing his company was developing. Ethan complained about a contractor who'd screwed up measurements on a job site. Normal family stuff.
After dinner, ...