Equilibrium by Lorrie Thomson

overgrown boy. Nothing extreme. But she’d kept her hand on Daddy’s leg till they’d pulled into their driveway. Then they’d gone straight up to bed.
    Michael slid his gaze to the shaking ceiling. “Troy’s kind of hyper or something.”
    “He’s always had tons of energy.” Hyper was not a word anyone in her house used lightly, too close to manic . Michael knew better.
    “After practice, he kept running, like he didn’t want to stop. No, like he couldn’t stop. Then he sped off ahead of me on his bike. Didn’t even stop at a red light.”
    Troy usually stopped on yellow.
    “He didn’t want to be late for dinner?” she said, and instantly regretted the way her statement curled at the end.
    “Yeah, right,” Michael said, and his deadpan expression reminded Darcy he was just a stupid kid.
    Why was Michael getting all worked up? Why was he trying to get her all crazed? Nobody told her what to think, but the thought of her little brother—
    “Screw you, Michael! I’ll go see for myself.” Darcy untangled herself from Nick, bolted through the kitchen, and raced up the stairs. So what if Troy ran a few extra times around the track? Extra energy didn’t necessarily mean anything bad. Not always.
    She paused at Troy’s closed bedroom door, remembering one of the many times her father had rapid cycled between depression and mania. Daddy had been sitting in the kitchen, forehead resting on his arms, still as a stone. Darcy had tried to tiptoe around him. And then, boom ! Next thing she knew he’d jumped up, sprinted for the door, and started running in circles, while she, her mother, and Troy had sat out on the deck. They’d tired from hours of watching him before he’d even slowed. “Troy? Dinner’s up. Let’s go.”
    Darcy creaked the door open, expecting to see her brother jogging around the room.
    Troy hunched over his desk beneath the watchful eye of his favorite poster, Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue. He scribbled in a wire-bound notebook. The pen scratched in agreement with his twitching legs, his rocking body.
    She’d never seen her brother look so much like Daddy before. “Hey, what’s going on?” she said, trying for a light tone. Instead, her voice came out in a whisper.
    He mumbled to the notebook, waving her away with his free hand.
    Earth-smelling air flowed through six wide-open windows. The slight breeze circulating throughout the room should’ve cooled her down and stopped her from itching with perspiration. Troy continued his nonstop writing. She’d learned about hypergraphia years ago after Daddy started wearing wrist guards to save him from worsening tendonitis. His writing compulsion would evolve from pounding the computer keys to filling notebooks with a frenzy of swirls and loops.
    “Just gotta finish this.” Troy jumped up with the notebook, and Darcy startled. He read to himself in front of Darcy’s favorite Einstein poster, the one declaring that imagination was more important than knowledge. The sentiment was lost on her brother.
    “Oh, this is so great!” Troy snapped the notebook shut, unleashing a flood of words. “D’you remember when we were like six and eight, and we went camping at Hermit Island in the boys’ and girls’ tents, and Dad was, like, so clueless, and you and Mom slept through that storm, and me and Dad ended up in a freakin’ puddle, and me and Dad slept in our old van, and he gave me all the blankets, and he didn’t even sleep?”
    “Kinda.” He’d lost her at tents .
    “The scarlet moon howls, and the sun flames, a color burst descent brightening the skies. Children’s book illustrations are so emotionally evocative, so in sync with the—”
    “Troy.” She spoke his name clearly, like Mom often did when Dad grew unreachable.
    He ran his fingers through his hair. “Dad was the only other person in the whole world who liked tapioca pudding, and now it’s too late to thank him for that and for that vase I broke and all those