Tick-tick-tick.

The clock on the mantle clicked like a harbinger of doom. Fabric rustled as someone shifted in place and the ceiling above creaked as if under the weight of phantoms. Cold, white light fell through the window and cast the corners of the living room in shadows. Pieces of furniture - a credenza, a hutch, an end table - leered from the gloom like hungry monsters through dense fog, waiting to snatch and gobble up the first unwary soul who passed. Framed photos stared down from high places, frozen snapshot of moments and memories past, each one happy once, each one now mocking, a gallery of damning faces like a celestial jury disgusted by the proceedings before it.

A gust of wind moaned in the eaves...or maybe it was only the roar of blood pounding against his temples. The man could not tell.

Standing in the middle of the living room with his hands on his hips and his eyes downcast, he could feel the photos watching him, judging him, disgusted with him...but not as disgusted as he was with himself.

He chewed his chapped bottom lip anxiously between his teeth and studied the coffee table because he was afraid to look at his daughters lest they see the pain and confusion welling in his eyes.

Moments ago, Rita put her arm protectively around Lincoln's shoulder like a mother bird drawing her chick under her wing, and took him upstairs to clean the wounds on his wrists. They were shallow, thank God, but the image of torn, pink flesh echoed through the chambers of Lynn's head like a ghostly scream, and a shiver went down his spine. Rita spared Lynn a quick, stricken glance over her shoulder and she lead their son past. He had been married to her for nearly twenty years and knew her the way a man might a favorite melody; she was doing everything she could to hold herself together, and later, when it was just them and she no longer needed to put up a strong facade for the children, she would break down in tears.

To be fair, Lynn probably would too.

Taking a deep, burdened breath, he let out in a shaky rush and raked his trembling fingers through what was left of his graying hair. He was forty-one, and though life wasn't always easy, he had the hang of it. Right now, though, he felt completely and irreparably lost, like a babe in the woods. He had the sense of drowning, his head dipping below and his feet kicking over an impossibly vast gulf. His children were happy, loved, and well-cared for, even if he and Rita didn't bring in much money. The kids had what they needed and, more often than not, what they wanted as well. They were well-adjusted, they cared for one another, they fought and bickered and threw each other under the bus to save their own skin sometimes, but they were children, that's what children did. They were close, even so, and...and…

Lynn's head spun. None of this made any sense to him and the more he tried to comprehend it, the more tangled he became. Something was terribly wrong here, something that he had never imagined possible, and that he could scarcely even grasp it greatly perturbed him. Something like...this happened to other people, families that weren't his.

Yet here he was, awake in a nightmare he couldn't fathom, barely able to breathe, barely able to even think. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again when he felt his lips quiver. He took another breath and let it out through his nose.

Before him, his daughters were crammed together on the couch like sardines in a can, nine faces pallid and wan ( the tenth, Lily, sitting in Lisa's lap, had no idea what was going on). Lori hugged herself against a chill only she could feel and stared dazedly at her knees, Leni furrowed her brow in an honest attempt to understand what was going on, Lynn fidgeted, and Lucy looked even more dour than usual. Lynn loved his children more than life itself, and to know that one was in pain - pain enough to try and kill themselves - was like being crushed between the cold, steely arms of a vise. His lungs refused to fully expanded, and the too hot air wrapped around him like a wet blanket. He took another deep breath and blinked against a sudden onslaught of tears.

Even now, he couldn't understand this anymore than Leni could. He was downstairs in the kitchen when Lincoln's voice thundered through the house, high and strained like a cry of pain. Then Luan and Luna found the trash can filled with vomit and bloody napkins that presently sat atop the coffee table. Lynn's eyes flickered guiltily to it then darted away when they alighted on a wad of red stained white.

How could he miss this? How did he not see the signs that something was terribly wrong with his only son? He was involved with his children. He saw them and spoke to them as often as he possibly could. He helped them with their homework mediated their disputes, gave them the same love, advice, and encouragement his own father had given him. Lincoln's feelings didn't just happen overnight; the raw, moist pain in his shimmering eyes wasn't the result of an errant thought of a simple argument, it had been growing and festering inside of him for a long time, like cancer in a diseased body. How could this have slipped by Lynn?

Hot shame spread across the back of his neck and all of a sudden, he felt naked, exposed, bared for the fraud of a father he so obviously was. His resolve started to waver and he took another breath in an attempt to fortify himself. He rarely drank, but right now the urge to escape into a cloud of inebriation came upon him so hard and strong his knees buckled.

"Okay," he said, and inwardly winced at the shellshocked quality of his own voice. It was his job, as a father, to project strength and assurance, but he felt neither strong nor assured.

He felt weak.

The girls squirmed, chaffed, and exchanged guilty glances. Lori swallowed thickly and brushed her hair out of her face. Dark, splotchy mascara ran down her cheeks and her pinkish, bloodshot eyes were filled with a misery that cut Lynn like a knife. "It's my fault," she said in a broken croak.

"No," Lola said to her lap, "it's mine."

Luan heaved a sigh. "I knew something was wrong with him," she said, "and I didn't say anything."

"So did I," Lynn Jr. said. She sounded as lost Lynn Sr. felt. She looked up at him, and unshed tears stood in her limpid eyes. "He's been acting really weird and I should have done something about it."

Suddenly, everyone was talking at once. Lynn held up his hand, and they all fell silent. "Lori," he said, "tell me exactly what happened."

With help and input from Lynn, Lola, and Lisa, she did.

Several days ago, Lisa found Lincoln standing "desolately" in front of the trophy case. "I thought nothing of it at the time," Lisa said, "but in retrospect, he seemed to be deep in contemplation, as though considering his merits and worth against ours."

Lynn recalled Lincoln being down a few months back because each of his sisters had won awards but he hadn't. That cleared up - or so he thought - when they got together and made him a special trophy.

Lola took over and explained that she wanted to play tea party with Lincoln and dragged him into it even though his disinterest was obvious. He tried to beg off but she wouldn't let him, and he finally got angry and shoved her down. Lori and Luna made him apologize, then sent him on his way. Luna told Lynn Sr. about it but he didn't see anything particularly out of the ordinary in it; siblings fight and sometimes things get physical.

This morning, Lynn found him asleep on the couch, and when she innocently asked him why he was there and not in his room, he snapped at her. Later, Lana dragged him outside to play in the mud with her. Things were going well until he scraped his arm against a rock. It was purely an accident, but Lincoln erupted on Lana and blamed her. In the kitchen, while he was cleaning his wound, Lynn Jr. asked him if he was okay, and he took off on her next, accusing her of not caring whether he was okay or not, bringing up the time she accidentally broke his arm.

Immediately prior to Lincoln's outburst earlier, he sought Lucy out to write poetry together. She asked him to fetch a bottle of black nail polish from Lori and Leni's room. He accidentally spilled it on the carpet, and Lori got angry. As she recounted the things she said to him - that he always fucked everything up and that she wished she only had sisters - Lynn Sr.'s stomach knotted. "Jesus, Lori," he muttered. His eldest daughter had done wrong many, many times in her life, but Lynn had never felt the corrosive mix of disgust, rage, disappointment, and hurt toward her that roiled in his stomach now. Anger colored his cheeks and his heart slammed a violent tattoo against his ribs. His muscles tensed and for a split second, he saw himself lashing out, slapping her, pulling her hair, screaming at her, letting all of the fear and frustration out in a crazed torrent.

But the small, hitching sound of her voice blew it all way. "I'm sorry, Daddy," she said.

As suddenly as it had come, the fire was gone, and he was empty again, a chasm in his heart and ice heavy on his bones. His entire body went limp and all he wanted to do was lie down, pull the covers over his head, and forget any of this happened.

He couldn't. His son was hurting - and so, too, by the looks of it, were his daughters - and it was up to him to make things right.

But how? He was so out of his element here. His first instinct was to scold the girls and then go talk to Lincoln, but this wasn't a simple case of a boy feeling down or even running away from home, Lincoln tried to commit suicide. He took a razor and cut himself. Not badly, but what if he had? What if Luna and Lori didn't interrupt him? What if he did it again?

What if there was something seriously wrong with him?

The idea of Lincoln being mentally or emotionally disturbed shocked and terrified Lynn. There was no other explanation, though. Why would he feel this strongly over a fucking throphy? Why would he believe his sisters didn't care about him when they obviously did if he wasn't seeing things through a distorted prism of sickness?

That was inconceivable, though, Lincoln had always been bright and happy, just like his sisters. Lynn knew his son and he had never detected melancholia in him. He had friends, a loving family, and his smile lit up the room. There was no way there could be anything seriously wrong with him, there just wasn't.

Was there?

He said he never saw deep, crushing sadness in Lincoln, but the evidence laid out before him said that he did. He missed it and probably had been missing it for a very long time. "I didn't mean it," Lori said, a plaintive inflection in her voice. "I didn't mean to say that stuff to him." That last bit came out as a hoarse whisper, and she hugged herself tighter. Leni rubbed a comforting circle between her shoulder blades, and Lori sniffled, then blotted her wet eyes with the heel of her palm.

"I know you didn't," Lynn Sr. said. He tried to think of something else to say, but came up empty handed. What could he say?

Right now, there was only one thing he could do.

Talk to Lincoln.

Worthless.

Two red, water filled eyes squeezed closed, blocking out the drawn face hovering worriedly over them. They couldn't bear to gaze upon the pain they saw written across its jagged features. In less than twenty minutes, Mom seemed to have aged ten years: Deep frown lines spread away from the corners of her mouth and eyes, and her skin stretched tight across her skull. Her hair, as blonde as Lori's, had faded somehow, and in the light spilling through the transom window, it looked almost gray. Her lips were a bloodless slash, and when Lincoln accidentally met her gaze, he glimpsed raw, unconcealed pain.

You did this to her.

No. H-He loved his mother. He would never hurt her.

Yes you would. And you did. You hurt your entire family. Just crawl away and die before you hurt them again.

A lump formed in his throat and he swallowed. Tears welled at the backs of his eyes and his lips began to quiver. He bit down hard on the insides of his mouth to keep from breaking down and took deep, uneven breaths through his nose. "This might sting," Mom said, voice cracking. She dabbed a cotton swab over one of the wounds, and Lincoln hissed through his teeth. The astringent smell of alcohol filled his nose and searing tendrils of pain shot up his arm.

She rocked back on her knees, rummaged through the see-through first aid kit on the floor, and came back with a Band-Aid. Lincoln watched her as she ripped it open, the hateful voice in his head quiet and the anguish washing through him beginning to still. Was it cold in here? It soaked into his skin and chilled his marrow, slicing through him like a thousand tiny knives.

Mom pressed the Band-Aid to the cut and ran the tip of her finger along its length to make sure it stuck. She worked in grim silence, her throat bobbing s she presumably fought to keep herself from falling to pieces.

Look what you did.

This time the voice…

...the voice was Lori's, sharp, accusing, and oozing with contempt. An image flashed across his mind: Lori as she was after he spilled the nail polish earlier. Only this time things were different. She stood over him like a cannibalistic giant. Wickedly serrated fangs ringed her working maw, and hatred blazed in her eyes like the fires of hell. She hooked her fingers into hooked talons and let out an earth-shaking roar that struck terror into Lincoln's center. Somehow he was a toddler again, small, weak, too scared to move. YOU ALWAYS FUCK EVERYTHING UP! she thundered, and her claws swiped across his cheek, tearing his flesh. He fell to the floor in a heap and gaped up at her. Blood seeped from his wounds and warm pee spread over the crotch of his jeans. Lori towered into the darkened sky, so tall now Lincoln could barely make out the profile of her face. She lifted one massive foot and Lincoln's blood ran cold. He started to scream, but red pain split the dream into a million tiny fragments like breaking glass. Lincoln gasped, and Mom placed a Band-Aid on the other cut.

She turned quickly away, her pallid hair veiling her face, and shoved everything haphazardly back into the kit. She snapped it closed, shoved it under the sink, and got stiffly to her feet. She sat on the closed toilet lid next to Lincoln, and Lincoln slid over to give her room. His heartbeat sped up and he steeled himself for what he knew was going to come.

Instead of grilling him, she surprised him by sweeping him into a tight embrace, squeezing him to her bosom like a child's stuffed animal, and breaking down. Misery twisted Lincoln's heart and the tears he had been struggling to hold back for the past half hour overspilled his eyes and ran down his cheeks in salty rivulets. Mom's body shook with the power of her weeping, and the high, kneading sound broke Lincoln in half. He buried his face into her chest and clung to her with the desperation of a boy hanging onto a life preserver. She rocked him from side to side and managed to speak between her sobs, but the words came out garbled. Lincoln's tears soaked into the fabric of her blouse and his tiny frame trembled like a dying leaf on a barren tree. He tried to pull himself back from the edge, but the ground crumbled beneath his feet and he tumbled head over heels into the abyss instead. All of the pain and self-loathing that had been steadily building in him for the past few weeks...for his entire life...came out of him in an emptying rush.

Something fell on the top of his head, and a thumb tenderly brushed his hair back from his forehead. Lincoln looked up, and through blurry eyes, his father was a dark, abstract shape backlit against the overhead light.

Lynn got down to one knee and wrapped his arms around his wife and son. He did not realize that he was openly crying, and wouldn't have cared if he had. He held Rita and Lincoln close as if by doing so he could protect them from all terrible things. He came very close to losing his only son today and that awful knowledge smashed through his defenses like a killing wave breaking over the world. His tears came faster and his grip tightened. If he didn't let go, if he held on forever and smothered the darkness with his love, things would be okay. Lincoln would be okay.

"I'm sorry," Lincoln hitched, and his voice broke. "I'm so sorry."

Lynn sushed him and pressed their foreheads together. "No," he said, "I am."

For a long time, they simply held each other. Slowly, Lincoln's tears tapered off, and he was spent once more, empty inside with nothing left to give, cold like a pile of ashes after a fire. Shame washed over him and he snuggled deeper into his mother's chest, as if by doing so he could escape what he had done, and his failed punchline of a life. He regretted trying to kill himself and hurting his mom and dad, but he also regretted that he didn't succeed. How many more times would he disappoint them in the years to come? How many more times would he hurt them or his sisters through his bumbling incompetence? Lori was right, he was a fuck up. He couldn't do anything right and the fact that his sisters all had talents and the awards to back them up and he had nothing just proved it. The only natural ability he had was to destroy things. His sisters deserved a better brother, one who wasn't a simpering little wreck like him.

Deep in his chest, a spark stirred in the shards of his soul like a stray ember. Once it had a little kindling, it would ignite again. The voice would come back, the desolation would grip him, and the terrible cycle would begin all over again.

He should kill himself.

He was broken and his family would be better off without him.

But could he do it? Earlier, the pain of the blade rending his flesh was too great to bear and he chickened out. He was a coward. Could he follow through with it this time?

He didn't know and that bothered him.

He deserved to die.

But there was a part of him…

...a very BIG part…

...that didn't want to.

Lincoln's eyes fluttered sleepily open, then snapped closed against the bright morning light falling through the window. His mind was muddled, his body hot with fever. He shifted and bumped into something, then tried to roll away but bumped into something else. His brow pinched in confusion and he tried to open his eyes again, but they were gummed shut.

Giving up and not caring, he allowed himself to drift on the misty tides of unconciousness, reluctant to come fully awake. He glided just below the surface, aware enough to know that monsters lurked above, but not enough to know their shape or nature. Down here, out of sight, he was safe, nothing could hurt him. If he bobbed to the cold, hateful surface, the monsters would get him.

Gradually, however, the swirling fog dissipated and everything came back to him like a wave of icy water. He tried to swim away, but the monsters chased him down and with them came the memories of the previous day. He fucked up. He fucked up in so many ways it turned his stomach. He could do nothing but fuck up and he should have died when he cut his wrists, but he chickened out like the sissy he was.

His eyes opened and winced at the glare. Even before he took stock of his surroundings, he knew something wasn't right. The sunlight was different, and it took him a moment of contemplation to realize it was coming from a different direction than usual. His window was directly above his bed and in the morning, the light bathed the far wall. Now, it was more evenly dispersed and seemed to be centered on his left, as though the window had changed spots in the night.

Huh?

He jammed his elbows into the mattress and pushed himself up. It was far, far softer than usual, and his feet didn't reach the bottom. He sat up, and a long, three foot high dresser greeted him. His head spun and he started to lay back down, but a flicker of movement caught his attention and he froze. A white, skeletal face stared at him from across the room. Gaunt with sallow skin, dark eyes, and fangs, it grimaced, and Lincoln's heart rocketed into his throat. A shiver raced through his body and a whimper escaped his constricted chest. He moved and the creature matched him. A cry bubbled up inside of him, but before he could give voice to it, he realized what he was seeing.

His reflection,

A large, smooth piece of polished glass backed the dresser, and he remembered where he was.

Mom and Dad's room.

Last night, Mom insisted that he sleep with her and Dad. They both said they wanted him "close." They didn't say so, but Lincoln knew they were afraid of him trying to kill himself again. Rightfully so. Maybe. He didn't have the heart - or the guts - to try again so soon, but who knew what the future held? He was a screw-up and he did nothing but fail and make his family suffer. He was a loser, a wimp, a dork, the only boy but smaller than half of his sisters and physically weaker than all. Every little has that runt, the little one who couldn't fight its way to the teet against the others, the one who didn't get the same nourishment, the one that wasn't cut out for life and typically laid down in the dirt to die. Of the Louds, he was that runt. He was weak in both body and mind. He was small, painfully shy, anxious, angsty. His sisters were...well...they were normal, each and every one of them. They were happy, well-adjusted, had friends, some of them even had boyfriends. Boys didn't run in terror from them the way Cristina ran from him.

Not that he could blame her. He was ugly, awkward, his voice sounded like a girl's, and he still slept with a stuffed rabbit, like a little baby.

Depressed now, he settled down between his parents and stared up at the ceiling with vacant eyes. He was worthless.

Eventually, Mom and Dad both woke, and he followed them downstairs. He didn't want to face his sisters, didn't want to get in the way of their lives, but when he asked Mom if he could go to his room, she made up an excuse about needing his help in the kitchen, so he dragged himself behind like he wasn't dead inside.

While Mom made breakfast, Lincoln stood by the counter and fetched things for her from the fridge and pantry. Every time he brought her a box, jar, or package, she caressed his face, ruffled his hair, and offered a tender smile. Lincoln couldn't bring himself to look at her, and kept his head down. She cracked a dozen eggs into a bowl and whisked them, then turned on the stove and laid five strips of bacon on. The grease crackled and popped, hissing like hateful voices, and Lincoln's stomach churned.

Dad came in from the dining room and stopped to squeeze his shoulder. "That sure smells good," he said. His sunny tone was stiff and contrived, fake to Lincoln's ears.

"It'll be done in a minute," Mom said, "is everyone down?"

"Getting there," Dad said.

Lincoln's chest knotted. The last thing he wanted to do was see his sisters, and a noose of panic threaded around him.

When breakfast was done, he helped Mom carrying the food into the dining room and sat it on the table. He kept his gaze firmly on the floor, but he could feel them all looking at him anyway. He sat in an empty chair between Lucy and Lana. The room was uncharacteristically silent, like a tomb, and the air thrummed with tension. Everyone muttered a good morning when Mom and Dad spoke to them, but nothing else.

They didn't bicker.

They didn't laugh.

They didn't tease each other or prattle about their dreams or day's plans.

They just ate. The clock in the living room ticked ever on, and forks scraped a dozen plates, but no one spoke. Lincoln raised his eyes just enough to steal a furtive glance. His sisters all sat in stooped postures similar to his own, heads down, eyes on their plates. They ate with the mechanical apathy of robots carrying out their assigned tasks because that's what their programming told them to do. They did not delight in it, but they also did not rue it. They simply plodded on, on, ever on.

His fault. This was all his fault. He and his dirtbaggery had cast a shadowy pall over his family; he sucked the joy out of their lives like a white-haired vampire. He was a dark cloud on their sunny day, the rain on their parade, the millstone around their necks, the dead weight dragging this family down.

He was a complete and total loser.

Tears sprang to his eyes and he clamped them shut. He was already making it hard enough for them, crying would only make it worse. They didn't deserve that.

Someone cleared their throat and Lincoln looked up. "I-I was thinking," Lori said haltingly to Mom, "that maybe Lincoln and I could do something today."

Her words from yesterday came back to him like a brisk slap and his heart withered in his chest at the prospect of being alone with her. You need to snap out of it, you little twerp, he imagined her saying coldly. You got me in trouble.

Please say no, he thought, please say no.

"That sounds nice," Mom said, and Lincoln's spirits crashed.

Lori flicked her eyes to Lincoln, then darted them to her plate. In them, Lincoln swore he saw not anger or outrage, but shame.

Almost like she was in the wrong.

But wasn't she? She exploded on him just for spilling a little nail polish.

No, no, he was wrong. Like she said, he always fucked things up. It was no wonder she finally went off on him.

Lincoln spent the rest of breakfast dreading his time alone with Lori. One-by-one, his sisters finished and drifted off. On Saturday mornings, the halls and chambers of the house echoed with life, but today they were silent. No thumping as Lynn dribbled her basketball on the floor, no clanging as Lucy made her way through the pipes to her secret dark place, only a deep and morbid hush. After a while, only Lori and Lincoln remained. Lincoln's face burned with humiliation and his heart pounded so loud it reverberated through his head. He darted his eyes to the living room and willed himself to slink away, but his body was locked. Lori fixed her gaze on the spot where her plate had been and collected her thoughts. "Go upstairs and get ready," she said meekly, "and, uh, we can go."

Go? God, go where?

He wanted to pull away, to scream at her in both fury and remorse. Fury for what she said and made him feel, remorse for ruining her life with his shit.

Instead, he did as she said. Upstairs, in his room, he sat on the edge of his bed and favored the Ace Savvy poster on the wall with an absent expression. As far back as he could remember, Ace was his hero. Watching him fly, fight bad guys, and save the day made Lincoln feel inexplicably good. Now he realized that he liked Ace because Ace was everything that he was not: Smart, brave, handsome, strong, confident, and not a worthless runt. Ace always knew just what to do. Lincoln, on the other hand, always knew the wrong thing to do.

He wished he was Ace.

Life would be so much better.

Sighing, he got up, took a pair of jeans from the dresser, and pulled them on over his underwear. When was the last time he changed those? He couldn't remember and he didn't care. What did it matter? What did anything matter?

He selected an orange polo shirt from his closet and sipped it on, then his shoes and socks. He trudged back downstairs like a man on his way to the electric chair, the voice beginning to whisper from the back of his head. Idiot. Loser. Inadequate.

Lori was perched on the edge of the armchair catercorner to the couch, hands fisted to her knees. Her face was a bloodless shade of white and her eyes seethed with a tempest of dark emotions. She glanced up when he came in, but she went out of her way to avoid making eye contact with him. "You ready?" she asked hesitantly.

"Yeah," Lincoln said, even though he wasn't.

She got to her feet and crossed to the door, Lincoln falling in behind her. She stopped, grabbed the keys to the van from a pegboard by the door, and called out, "We're leaving!"

"Okay!" Mom returned from the kitchen.

Lincoln cast a longing look back, hoping for some salvation, but none came, and he followed his sister outside.

Amber, mid-morning light bathed the day in brilliant hues and the full, green trees up and down the sidewalk swayed in the warm breeze. Kids rode their bikes, skipped rope, and chased each other across front lawns, and a shirtless man in jeans and a red headband worked over the exposed engine block of a Monte Carlo like a hippie faith healer. Lincoln and Lori made their way to the van and got in, both pulling their seatbelts over their chests. Lincoln rested his hands in his lap and gazed out the window as Lori started the engine and backed into the street, waiting to let a fat boy on a Hovercraft pass. The air was thick between them and the silence so deafening that Lincoln could hear his own blood rushing through his veins. Lori gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead, her face drawn and haggard. For the first time, Lincoln noticed the dark bags under her eyes, as though she hadn't slept well in months, and the way strands of her hair stuck out, In that moment, she looked so much like Mom it was uncanny.

He turned away and trained his attention on his feet. His shoes were beginning to come apart in spots and his once white laces were a dirty gray color. Would he live long enough to need a new pair?

That thought struck him like a bullet from the ether, and his stomach did a slow barrel roll. He didn't want to think about dying right now, didn't want to think about anything.

By now, they were on the interstate. Lincoln started to ask where they were going but stopped himself. "You know I didn't mean what I said yesterday," Lori finally managed, "right?" Her throat bobbed up and down and when she turned her head to look at him, tears shimmered in her tormented eyes.

Lincoln's first instinct was to say whatever it took to assuage her pain, but his throat closed and his cheeks smoldered. "I swear to God, Linc," she said, a note of desperation in her voice, as though she needed him to believe her.

Was she being honest? Was she really sorry? An ember of hope flickered in his chest, but he refused to let it grow. Of course she was sorry - sorry that Mom and Dad were probably mad at her, sorry that her little squirt of a brother spagged out like a big baby and cut his wrists. If none of that ever happened...if he just took her comment in stride and wept over it later...would she be sorry then?

Something told him she wouldn't.

A memory came unbidden into his mind: The time Mom and Dad went on a date and he and his sisters tied Lori up. He tried to replace her but failed. At the end of the night, he went crawling back to her, and she put everything right. Afterwards, they played video games and laughed together. Had that memory always been so achingly beautiful, or was he seeing it now the way a man sees good times during the bad? Good times have a way of looking even better when we're down. He remembered the all too brief sense of closeness. He didn't get to spend much time with any of his sisters one-on-one and those occasions were all the sweeter because of their rarity.

Maybe...maybe she didn't hate him. Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe no matter what she did or said, what any of them did or said, he would stubbornly believe his mind's delusions. They would worry over him and he would never see it.

He would hurt them.

He needed to die!

"I'm sorry, I was just frustrated," she continued. "I have a huge test coming up a-and Bobby and I were arguing and...I just went off. I didn't mean to. I just lashed out and I...I…"

Tears fell down her cheeks like drops of November rain and she sucked her trembling lips into her mouth. She turned back to the road and passed a pick-up truck with FARM USE ONLY on the tailgate in sloppy white writing. She blotted her eyes with the heel of her palm and took a deep, shivery breath. Lincoln felt his own eyes beginning to water, and he blinked. "I know," he said. "I'm sorry I spilled that nail polish."

Lori threw her head back and Lincoln recoiled, irrationally certain that despite what she just said, she was going to explode again...and this time, she wouldn't stop at just pummelling him with her words. "Don't worry about the nailpolish," she said in a rush. "The nailpolish doesn't matter, Lincoln. You do. I said really horrible things to you and…" she swallowed thickly and concentrated on the road. She merged into the right lane and took an off-ramp. Three blocks later, Twin Pines Mall rose up against the dusty blue sky like an uber-modern fortress with glass ramparts and skylights in place of turrets.

She pulled the van into a slot facing the street and killed the engine. She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned in her seat to face Lincoln. Lincoln forced himself to look at her. In her eyes, he saw sincerity. "I'm so sorry, Lincoln, I really am. I've been a terrible big sister but never like that." Her voice cracked and she started to cry. She reached out, took Lincoln's hand, and brushed her thumb lovingly over his knuckles. "You don't fuck everything up. This family literally couldn't function if it weren't for you. You think you're not as good as us but you are, Lincoln. In fact, you're better. You've helped us in so many ways and if we didn't have you, we'd fall apart. You are the glue that holds this family together."

Lincoln's face flushed and he looked away. He was embarrassed by her praise...but embarrassed more so because she meant it.

"I'm not." he muttered. "You were right, I am a fuck up. You and everyone else have all these amazing talents and what do I have?"

"A heart," Lori said without hesitation. "You have a big heart. You always make time for us and help us when we need you, Lincoln. Even I don't do that and I should. I'm the oldest and everyone looks up to me a-and I should be better, but I'm not. I'm a selfish asshole." She sniffed and wiped her eyes. "I'm so sorry we made you feel this way. You're the best little brother ever and we take you for granted. That ends now."

Lincoln swallowed. All of that should have made him feel better but it somehow only made him feel sick to his stomach.

Lori threw open her door and they got out. Side-by-side, they went into the mall through the main entrance. Sunlight poured in through the skylight overhead and bathed the stone floor. A big fountain dominated the lobby and shops lined either side.

First, Lori took him to the comic book store and told him to pick out anything he wanted. She was trying to buy him off, he realized, and that depressed him. Yeah, maybe she meant what she said, but…

He didn't know. His head hurt, his mind ached, and he was so exhausted he could barely stand up. He grabbed a few comics at random and stood next to Lori as she paid. Next, they went to the arcade, where Lori paid for them to play a dozen games together. At Zombie Slayer 3000, she wedged the plastic rifle to her shoulder and aimed it at the screen, one eye squinted. "Alright, Linc," she said, "let's do this."

A wave of zombies came at them, and they fired in unison. One attacked Lori and she let out a terrified cry. Lincoln shot it to pieces. "Oh, no," Lori shouted, "they're everywhere! What do we do?"

"Follow my lead," Lincoln said. All the pain and dark ideations melted away like ice in the spring sun as he got into the game. He mowed down a group of zombies, then swiveled around and shot one before it could kill Lori. "I'm almost out of bullets!" Lori cried.

"Shoot that box over there."

She did, and was rewarded with a hundred rounds of zombie stopping power. The next level had them on the deck of a ship in stormy seas. Zombies threw themselves at them, and Lori gasped. She jerked the trigger and ten heads exploded. "Good job," Lincoln said. His fear, anger, and self-loathing was forgotten. Right now, he was all business. "Keep aiming for their heads to conserve ammo. It's the weakest point on their bodies."

"Just like Leni," Lori said.

A laugh was shocked from Lincoln's throat.

"That was mean," Lori said, "I shouldn't have said that. See what I mean about being an asshole?"

On level three, Lincoln died and it fell to Lori to save the world. "Okay," Lincoln said, standing beside her like a coach conferring with his top player, "remember. Aim for the head, conserve ammo, and -"

A zombie popped out of nowhere and attacked Lori. The screen turned blood red and the words GAME OVER appeared.

" - don't die."

Lori sighed and slumped her shoulders. "I'm not very good at video games," she confessed.

Yeah, he saw that. He pretty much carried her weight through four levels, plus a bonus round. That was okay, though, he had fun, and even now, his chest tingled with warmth. "You did good," he said to soften the blow, "but maybe zombie slaying isn't your thing."

"Skee ball is, though," she said with a cocky grin.

And boy, was she right. They played three rounds and Lori nailed every ball perfectly into the hole. "You're better than Lynn," he panted. He was shaky, pleasantly winded, and lightly coated in sweat.

"Practice, little bro, practice," Lori said.

"I bet I could beat you at Dance Dance Revolution," Lincoln said.

Lori smirked. "You're on."

A crowd of kids gathered around as Lincoln and Lori played. Lincoln hit every step, jumped, spun, and pulled a split just because he had an audience. Lori stumbled, missed, then started to fall. She pinwheeled her arms like a giant, featherless bird, then fell flat on her butt with a breathless umph. Lincoln's heart jolted and he rushed over, kneeling next to her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Lori ran her fingers through her tangled hair and shook her head like a dog coming in from the rain. "Yeah," she said, "I'm fine." She took Lincoln's hand and go to her feet, dusting imaginary dust from the seat of her shorts. "You're really good. Where'd you learn to dance like that?"

They were walking out now to the claps and cheers of the assembled. "Ronnie Anne," Lincoln said, "it's her favorite game so she made me play it alot."

"Sounds like you taught yourself."

Lincoln opened his mouth to argue, but closed it again. "I guess," he said truthfully. Ronnie Anne didn't teach him per se, she just tossed him into the water and it was either adapt or drown.

He said as much,, and Lori nodded her head appreciatively. "That's impressive," she said, "not everyone can do that. I mean, you're really good."

It was clear that she was trying, in a roundabout way, to broach the topic of his feelings of inferiority but didn't want to say anything outright for fear of casting a pall over their good time. That stung Lincoln. She felt like she had to walk on eggshells around him. Then again, didn't he just try to kill himself?

"I guess," he said, keeping all doubt from his voice.

They had lunch at the foodcourt; Lori got a taco from Timmy's and Lincoln a slice of pizza from Pissy's. He couldn't remember the last time he was hungry, but talking to his sister across the table about everything and nothing at all, he was surprised to find his appetite. As they left through the door they came in, he felt...okay. Still worthless, maybe, but the emotions weren't as keen as before.

On the way home, they stopped for ice cream at Carl's on the corner of State and Main. They sat at a picnic table on the stone patio flanking the building and ate their soft serve with the unhurried leisure of kids with nowhere to be and all day to get there. Lincoln relaxed and for the first time in days, maybe even weeks, he felt totally at ease with one of his sisters.

An hour later, they pulled into the driveway. The yard stood empty save for discarded toys and bits of litter, and the old house seemed to watch disapprovingly as they made their way up the walk. Lincoln's stomach flipped and his good mood began to fade like heat after the dying of a fire.

On the porch, Lori leaned over and peered through the sidelight window flanking the door as if looking for something. "Alright," she said, and Lincoln's brow knitted. She opened the door and went inside, and for a second, Lincoln hesitated before following.

In the living room, all of his sisters stood in a cluster, facing him like partygoers waiting for a special guest with a big, hearty "Surprise." Lincoln's step faltered and his heartbeat sped up.

"Hey, Linc!" Lynn shouted.

"Hi, Lincy," Lola said.

Everyone else offered their own greeting and surrounded him in a big, smiling circle of good cheer. Lincoln's chest tightened and his head spun. They weren't here just to welcome him home from the mall. There was something else. "W-What's going on?"

"Well," Lori sighed and flicked her eyes ashamedly to her feet, "we wanted to show you how important you are to this family, and how your natural ability far outweighs our own."

"So," Leni said, "we decided to do something totes special." She flashed a big, sunny smile.

The girls ushered him over to the couch, and Lynn shoved him down onto his butt. "Here ya go," she said and jammed a can of Coke into his hand.

"I got the popcorn," Luan said. She materialized from nowhere and sat a bowl in his lap. Lincoln opened and closed his mouth, too knocked off kilter to form words.

Lana pushed an Ottoman over and put his feet on it, and Lola wedged a pillow between his back and the couch. Someone closed the curtains, casting the room in shadows, and someone else turned on a hitherto unseen spotlight. Luan stood in the middle of the floor with her hands behind her back. "The Loud House Theater Trope now presents Life Without Lincoln."

Lincoln blinked.

Uh, this was supposed to make him feel better?

Luan stepped aside to reveal Lucy. She sat Indian style with a notebook balanced on her knees. She tapped a pencil against her chin as though she were stuck for what to write. "I don't know what rhymes with 'tormented soul.'"

A dozen rhymes came to Lincoln at once. Heart is a gaping hole, among them. That's how he'd been feeling lately, so it was only natural.

Lynn, tossing a football into the air, walked past Lucy, and Lucy held up her finger. "Can you -?"

"Can't," Lynn said, "busy."

Lori came next, head bent over her phone and thumbs flying across the screen. Lucy raised her finger and opened her mouth to ask for help, but Lori blew her off. "Oh, Bobby, you're so funny."

Lucy sighed and hung her head. "I really wish someone would help me. Now I'll never be a poet."

The light winked off, then back on. Lynn tossed her ball into the air and caught it. Luan passed, and Lynn grinned. "Hey, Chuckles, wanna play some football?"

A look of holy terror crept over Luan's face. "Uh...no thank you."

Before Lynn could stop her, she rushed off.

Leni came along, hands up and bent at the wrist, and Lynn nudged her. "Hey, Leni, wanna go long?"

Coming to a screeching halt, Leni held her index finger to her chin. "Long? I can't go long, Leni, I'm an adult, I'm done growing."

Lynn rolled her eyes.

Humming merrily, Leni went on her way and Lynn heaved a dejected sigh. "I wish had someone to play ball with."

The message here was not lost on Lincoln. How many times had he played football and basketball with Lynn when their sisters turned her down? More than he could count. He also helped Lucy with her poetry, and almost every time she regretted it because "You're so much better than I am. If I had a heart, I'd eat it out."

After Lynn, each of the girls put on her own performance. Leni desperately sought someone to model her new outfit. Luan asked Mom and Dad to listen to her new routine, but Dad was busy helping Lola with her homework and Mom was stuck making dinner. Luna played her guitar, then glanced longingly at the drum set Lincoln had sat behind many times because she had no one to play them. Lana and Lola got into a knock down, drag out fight, pausing long enough to glare at anyone who walked past. "Aren't you going to break us up?" Lola asked Lisa.

"Yours and Lana's affairs are none of my concern," Lisa dismissed.

Lincoln had broken up a million such fights.

Finally, everyone crowded the living room and bickered back and forth while Lily lay on her back with her legs up and a diaper in her hand. She glowered at her sisters, but no one came to change her.

"Linc," Lori said at the end of it all, "without you around, we'd literally fall apart. You help us when we need it and look out for us and..and all that other stuff."

"You model my outfits," Leni preened, "no one else will."

"I can't pay anyone to ball with me," Lynn said.

"You are the only sibling to willingly agree to submit to my physiological experimentations," Lisa lisped.

"You always know the right thing to say," Lucy added.

"And actually care if me and Lana get hurt," Lola said. "Why do you think I wanted to play tea party with you?" She flicked her eyes nervously down. "You're one of my favorite siblings."

Lincoln looked from one sister to the next, unaware that tears brimmed in his eyes or that he was tingling with warmth all over. "You think you're inadequate," Lori said, "but you're not. Honestly…" a look of pain rippled across her face, as though what she had to say next hurt but needed to be said anyway. "In fact, we're the ones who are inadequate. We're rude, selfish, ungrateful. God gave us a perfect little brother and we take him for granted."

Everyone looked ashamedly down at their feet. "I'm sorry," Lynn said.

Everyone else echoed her apology.

As one, they converged on him and swept him into a big, ten girl embrace that thawed the ice in Lincoln's soul. Each one shed tears of sorrow and thanksgiving, and Lincoln allowed himself to melt into their hug.

Maybe something was wrong with him...maybe he was too anxious or even bipolar...maybe he would even need therapy...but in that moment, swaddled in the love of his family, that didn't matter.

The road ahead might not be easy, but one thing was for certain.

Lincoln Loud didn't feel so inadequate anymore.

And he most certainly did not want to kill himself.