On The Brightside

I sat in the over sized leather chair with my legs folded under me and my elbows resting on my knees, propping up my head. I had my hair pulled back in a messy bun, and still pieces fell around my face and into my eyes. I was constantly pushing them away from my eyes, irritated with everything about this situation.

It was this way every Tuesday for the past four years. Ever since my parents were murdered in front of me, and I came to live with my foster parents, Amanda and Victor Ellison. They had a son that was two years older than me; his name was Nate. We weren't the closest of friends, but we got along okay, and he was always there for me.

If there was anyone in this world who had my back, it was Nate.

Back to the huge leather chair in the ugly brown-toned room in the huge building that had too many floors and big glass windows. It was one of the few big buildings in the area of Missouri where we lived.

Since I was twelve, Amanda and Victor have been paying for me to see a psychiatrist. It didn't bother me as much as some people, but it wasn't my favorite thing to do either. Doctor Fenlon was an older woman, supposedly among the best in her field, with chin-length dirty blond hair and a wrinkled face. She wouldn't tell me her real age, but I guessed she was in her fifties at least.

Today was the first time in months she brought up what happened to my parents. It was hard to talk about, obviously, but she didn't push me and she let me get it out in my own time.

I shut my eyes and covered my face, thinking back to that horrible December night, just a few weeks before Christmas.

I could feel my eyes growing impossibly wide as I stared in horror at what was happening. My father laying there, his eyes wider than mine and half his face sunken in a puddle of his own blood, while my mother screamed and screamed until her voice went ragged. Even when her voice was no more than a hoarse whisper, she still tried to scream. But no one would hear.

I was entirely still, hidden in the closet of our vast house, in my mom and dad's bedroom, using everything I had to stay quiet.

I watched my father, waiting for him to blink and sit up and wipe the blood off his face, but he didn't. He remained frozen like that, just like I did, but he would stay this way. I wished that his eyes were closed, because those two light blue orbs were staring straight at me.

My mother was still screaming, hot tears rolling down her cheeks and smudging her make-up. Normally my mom didn't wear make-up, but tonight they'd come home from a Christmas party after receiving a terrified phone call from my baby-sitter Amy, saying that someone was in the house.

Amy has instructed me to go and hide in the best hiding place I could think of while she called the police for help.

The masked assailant had chased her into my parents' room just seconds after I shut the accordion-shutter doors and settled. He stopped near the door, aimed, and put a bullet in the back of her head.

I couldn't even scream. I was frozen in shock. She fell behind the bed, so I couldn't see her, but I could hear her gurgled breath stutter to a stop. The man sat down in my mom's favorite chair and waited for them to get home.

It hadn't taken them long, and as soon as my dad flicked on the bedroom light and the room was brightened my mother's screams started. She saw the blood and the man who spilled it, just before he launched himself at my dad and kicked the back of his knees, sending him down into the execution position.

He pressed the gun barrel at my fathers head and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

My mother's eyes grew as wide as saucers and her screams grew longer and louder.

The gunman laughed and hit my mom with the butt of the gun, sending her to the floor.

I hid my face just as the third and final gunshot sounded.

"Loreli, do you want to tell me what's going on?" Dr. Fenlon asked, and I shook my head, wiping away the tears that had started to fall.

"Will you write it down for me?" she asked, and I glared at her, but picked the notepad of legal paper and blue pen off the table in front of me.

My hand shook as I wrote down the details of what I remembered. I sniffled, but my nose continued to run, and it was frustrating, but I kept writing. It helped a little bit to write it down and not have to speak it out loud. When I was writing, I could pretend that it was fiction, but when I said it, the whole thing became more real. Although, the reality of what had happened to my parents struck me soon after I moved in with the Ellison family.

I finished quickly and tossed her the notepad, before hugging my knees to my chest and resting my forehead on my knees.

I wanted to see Nate. He would make me feel better, in one way or another. Matt was the perfect brother in more ways than one.

He stuck up for me when I got shit at school. He gave me weed to get rid of my problems, and he made sure I didn't go too far from where he could keep track of me.

"You're making progress, Loreli. How are you handling this?" Dr. Fenlon asked, and I sighed.

"How would you handle being forced to drudge up bad memories about your parents being killed in front of you? It's fucking hard, okay? How much time do we have left?" I stared at her expectantly, and she gave me a small, short nod, before glancing at the clock on the wall behind me.

"About fifteen minutes. Let's talk about something else. How has rehab been?"

"Shitty."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want to get help. I'm not an alcoholic."

"It's illegal for you to drink. And it's terrible for you."

"Don't you think it's my decision if I want to waste my health and get piss drunk, so that I can forget this awful shit you keep making me think about?"

She was quiet for a while, and I cracked my fingers and my wrists. I wanted to go home and talk to Nate.

"Look, Doc. You're a real big help, but I just don't think that it's nessecary to go to rehab every week for something I don't want to fix. People are always around when I drink. It's not like I'm by myself where I can get hurt.

"You need to understand how dangerous your behavior is. You've had your stomach pumped three times-"

"You don't need to lecture me. I get enough of it from my older brother."

"How is Nate?"

"Probably going to be very angry that I'm not going to be home on time, which will in turn make him late for his gig tonight. Should I send your regards?"

"If you will, please. I guess we can finish up early."

"Thanks," I said, standing from the chair. I straightened out my tight black skinny jeans and white v-neck that hung loosely from my small frame. Dr. Fenlon hated the shirt, because my zebra print bra showed through and it was awkwardly low cut. Chris didn't mind too much though, so I ignored the Doc.

Chris Ingle is my boyfriend, sort of. It's not official by any means, and we both mess around with other people, but I kind of love him, and I think he sorta loves me too.

We're a lot alike, Chris and I. We use each other as a familiar comfort. He's the one who took me to get my hips pierced when Nate said no. He was my best friend. He was the one to dye my hair and a lot of time help with make-up, he took me shopping and did whatever I wanted, if it would make me feel better.

The only reason he wasn't really my boyfriend, which isn't really a good reason at all, is that nobody knows about us. We've intentionally kept "us" a secret, for reasons I'll get into a bit later.

I smiled at the thought of seeing Chris again tonight, and slipped my Ray Bans onto my face while I headed toward the door.

"See you next Tuesday," Dr. Fenlon called, and I waved without looking back. I had my phone out and was already dialing Nate's number by the time I made it to the stairs. I was eleven stories up (a height where normal people use the elevator) but I've had bad experiences with elevators, so I avoided them.

"Hey Lor," Nate sighed when he answered, and I smiled.

"Can you come get me? I just got out of my appointment," I explained, and he was quiet for a moment.

"Sure thing," he told me. It sounded a bit like he was holding his breath. I could guess why.

"I'll be waiting. Anyone with you?" I asked, and he hesitated again.

"Um, just Chris. But he's leaving."

"Fine. I'll see you in a bit. Bye," I said, trying to hide my eagerness. I didn't wait for him to respond. I hung up and smiled. See, Chris is my brother's best friend. So in order to avoid unwanted awkwardness and free up some other options, we are unofficial. In other words, there really is no "we".

It took about ten minutes for him to arrive, and when I opened the door, smoke oozed out and the musky scent of weed filled my nose. You see now why Nathan was holding his breath.

"Come on, we're clam-baking! Shut the door, you're letting all the smoke out," someone whined from the back seat, and I recognized the voice. It was hard not to recognize Christofer's voice. I've never heard a man speak with such a feminine tone.

Christofer Drew Ingle is a very interesting person. He's got a cute little face and messy, long, caramel colored hair. He wears an excessive amount of flannel shirts, tight jeans and slippers. His wrists are decorated with leather bands and bracelets, and what tattoos he has are always covered by his silly flannel shirts and weird vests.

But for all the good things he has going for him, there are definitely some bad. I'm sure you'll see what I mean.

Nate just grinned at me, and I shut the door after I sunk into the seat.

"How'd it go?" he asked, passing me the joint he had pinched between his fingers and pulled out onto the street.

"Same as usual," I laughed once before taking a hit and allowing myself to relax a little.

"Does that mean you cried a whole bunch?" Chris asked, and I passed him the joint, scowling after he took it.

I exhaled and grumbled, "if you have to know, I didn't cry. But she asked me a bunch of questions about it."

"What a dyke," he commented offhandedly, clearly too occupied with the blunt to really hear what I was saying.

"What have you guys been up to all day?" I asked Nate, who had so far been silent.

"This," the boy in the back spoke up again, handing the little roachie to Nate, who handed it to me.

"You need it more than I do," Nate said, and I smiled, ignoring whatever Chris was complaining about now.

The rest of the drive was full of Chris talking to hear his own voice, and Nate continually turning up the music louder and louder until Chris was shouting. Eventually he just shut up, and pouted in the back seat.

"Lor, I'm dropping the two of you off at our house, and then I gotta get to work. Chris has his car, so he'll be leaving right away. Don't worry," Nate joked, and I giggled, feeling just a bit buzzed.

"S'okay. I need some alone time anyway."

"Yeah, I'll bet you do," Chris smirked, and I rolled my eyes.

We got home a few minutes later, and I got out of the car with the rolling smoke, shutting the door behind me and trapping Chris inside. He yelled something, and I smiled to myself as I walked away.

I was about to the front door when I heard him say goodbye to Nate, before Nate took off and Chris' footfalls could be heard trying to catch up with me.

"I'll get you back for that. The stunt with the door? Very funny," he said, and followed me inside and up to my room. He didn't say anything else until he shut the door behind him, even though it wasn't really nessicary. We were the only two here.

I packed a bowl right away, and we passed it a few times, hardly saying a word the whole time as we sat on my bedroom floor.

After the third or fourth hit, my head started to whirl, and Chris was watching me intently.

I smiled, taking a hit off the bowl. I crawled closer to him on my hands and knees, and puckering my lips with the smoke still in my mouth. He didn't hesitate now at all, as he leaned forward and crushed my lips gently against his as I exhaled to smoke through my nose.

I sighed as his soft lips moved against mine, and his long fingers slid across the back of my neck, holding my face to his. After a moment, he broke away and smiled, taking another hit. I moved so that I was sitting on his lap with my legs around his incredibly narrow waist.

He exhaled, before kissing me again, this time deeper than before. His hands roamed over my back and brought me closer to him as the kiss intensified.

I had the sudden urge to cry. It could have been the way he was holding me like he thought I might break, or the way his lips managed to be needy and incredibly gentle at the same time.

But instead of getting my hopes up, I'm just going to blame it on the weed.

Because there's no way he needs me as much as I need him.

If there's one thing to know about Chris, it's that everyone loves him. He has a new "girlfriend" every other week, and even his ex-girlfriends still get along with him. In a nutshell, he's a popular guy.

And it's not that I'm unpopular. I have a lot of friends. I just don't really like being around people very much. All they ever do is hurt you, in the end.

Which is precisely why I refuse to admit that Chris means so much to me.

Even if I deserve him more than every other girl that looks his way.

And even if I appreciate him, everything about him, more than he realizes.

He'll see it when it's time.