8:01 pm - Big brother is always watching

A lot of people say that my brother and I have a very close sibling relationship. And I guess, from the outside, that seems true—we’re only two years apart. We grew up doing most things together: the same summer camps, the same chaotic friend groups, the same late-night arguments about whose turn it was to clean up the dog poop. When people saw us, they saw a pair. A duo. A prepackaged unit.

But during his senior year of high school, that closeness felt like a fake myth someone else had written about us. He was drowning in college apps, AP classes, auditions, essays, everything, which materialized into moodiness and a brooding face. I was living my personal era of 16-year-old teen girl angstiness, my one year of teenage rebellion. It was a perfect recipe for conflict. Our conversations didn’t just “end badly”. They combusted. We’d start neutral, escalate to irritated, and then land in sulking and door-slamming.

There’s one argument I remember very clearly.

It was July. Hot, sticky, irritable weather. My brother had gone through my phone (my phone!!!), scrolled through my messages, and then marched upstairs to report my “bad behavior” to our parents. This “bad behavior,” by the way, was literally me texting people of the opposite gender after 11 p.m. Not sneaking out, not committing crimes, not doing anything scandalous. Just replying to simple messages or homework help pleas.

Nevertheless, I was forced to hand over every password I owned like some criminal. My phone, a deeply personal space, became subject to spontaneous parental searches. I was furious. Flammable. I stormed downstairs and shouted, “BIG BROTHER IS ALWAYS WATCHING!”

He didn’t miss a beat. From the hallway, he snapped, “Because Big Brother actually knows how to make good decisions!”

People talk all the time about the complexities of teen-parent relationships, but they completely forget the weirdness that is teen-sibling dynamics. No one tells you how strange it is to outgrow childhood fights of hair-pulling, biting, scratching, and then somehow replace them with battles of sarcasm, silence, and passive aggression.

“Why don’t you ever text me back?” Is a common argument we've had.

“Because your texts are boring,” he’d reply, not even looking up from his phone.

And I hated that. Deeply. Passionately. Irrationally. Because I really care about texts. I reread them. I cherish them. I take screenshots when I love them enough. Words are my love language. Checking up on people is how I say, “I care.” Getting check-in texts is how I feel loved back. So when he didn’t respond, my brain went straight to: He hates me. I was and still am dramatic, but texts and words were too important for me to let that slide.

This year, though, I feel like something's changed. Maybe it's a better group of college friends, him liking a girl and needing my help, or something different. But he handed me his phone. He said I could look through anything as long as I didn't text anyone. I went to his text messages first (to see who he did text when he was ignoring me).

My contact photo was a baby picture. Not even a good one. A full-cheeks, blank-stare, slightly concerning baby picture. Even at eighteen, I'm still a baby to him.

Then I opened his camera roll. And it was like discovering a museum dedicated to me.

Terrible pictures of me. Truly terrible ones. Me half-asleep during important events. Me packing suitcases in a mess of clothes. Me trying (and failing) to tune an electric guitar. Me playing piano with my knees hugged to my chest. Me holding certificates. Me eating. Me mid-laugh.

Photos I did not know existed. Photos he never sent me. He noticed everything. Not in the texting-back, “How are you?” kind of way I crave, but in another language entirely. His own one. Love, I am slowly realizing, doesn’t always appear the way you expect or want. Sometimes it comes wrapped in insults. Sometimes it’s disguised as overprotectiveness that feels like betrayal. Sometimes it’s a camera roll full of ugly photos.

He and I still get under each other’s skin. We still argue. He still thinks my texts are boring, and I still think he communicates terribly. But when I saw all those pieces of my life he’d collected, I realized that even when we weren’t getting along, even when we thought we were drifting apart, he still saw me. He still cared. He still kept these small snapshots of who I was, who I am, who I’m becoming.

And without ever saying it or texting it, he's reminded me:

Big brother is always watching.