You're My Addiction

Ellie’s eyes fluttered open slowly as some kind of disturbance next to her woke her up from her deep, peaceful sleep. The first thing she thought was that it was the best sleep she had in a long time, and the second thought she had was the first few seconds after you woke up were always the best moments of the day. It was when you felt like you could start over, and if something bad happened the day before, you never remembered it until those few seconds were over.

Yes, that was the most blissful time of the day, but, unfortunately, it couldn’t last forever. Ellie buried her head in the pillow as everything that happened the night before came rushing back to her at full force. The emotions came over her in waves, and she remembered feeling what it was like not having to restrain everything. It had been a mistake, though. She had allowed everything that had built up for so long to take over, and she couldn’t have that happen again.

Ellie thought that dealing with her mistake the night before was going to be her biggest problem, but as she looked to the left to see what was going on in the bed next to her, she realized that having sex with Brian was going to be the least of her problems.

Matt was standing next to the bed, trying to grab a hold of Brian. The first thought that came to mind was that she was mortified at having no clothes on. She tried to move as carefully as possible and pull the sheets on the bed up far enough to cover up anything that would make their brother/sister relationship way too awkward. She managed that successfully, and she sat up in the bed, trying to further assess the disaster of a situation that was currently unfolding before her eyes.

Ellie was now able to see the look of pure fury on her brother’s face, and she honestly did start to fear for Brian’s life. Matt reached out, and it kind of looked like he was trying to grasp Brian’s throat to choke him. As much as she wanted to do something to stop any violence from happening, she was frozen to the spot. She raised a hand to her mouth in relief as Brian rolled off of the bed and underneath Matt’s grip of death.

By some chance of divine luck, Brian landed right on the pair of jeans they had carelessly discarded, along with the rest of their clothes, last night. Without pausing for a second, Brian slipped into them and dashed from the room, worrying about the button and zipper as he made his way as far away from Matt as possible. He realized if he wasn’t able to escape, Matt was actually considering to do him some serious harm.

Ellie watched Brian run from the room, her brother close on his heels, with her mouth hanging open. In her life, when it rained, it always poured. Fortunately, with their departure from the room, Ellie seemed to gain her thoughts and senses back. She realized she had to get dressed and get to Brian before Matt did something he would regret. She wouldn’t let them ruin their friendship over something as silly as this.

Brian ran down the hallway and looked for the best possible escape route. He evaluated the situation and realized the only way out was to go down the stairs. He could hear Matt stomping like a demon behind him, and he knew he didn’t have much of a choice but to go for the stairs.

As he began running again, he rammed, full force, right into the sleepy form of Zacky, who had been investigating what the source of all the noise was. Zacky almost fell but he regained his balance by gripping onto Brian’s shoulders. He was beyond confused.

“Dude, what the hell is going on?” Zacky asked. He looked into Brian’s eyes and saw a little hint of fear.

“Come back here and face me like a man, asshole!” Matt yelled as he came bounding around the corner. Brian gave Zacky one last look before he took off down the stairs. Suddenly, Zacky realized everything on his own. But, of course, to make matters worse for Brian and Ellie, what he guessed wasn’t one hundred percent correct.

“You’re mad because Ellie told you about Brian getting her pregnant, aren’t you?” Zacky asked innocently. Matt had already run past Zacky, but he stopped dead in his tracks at the words he had just heard. He turned around slowly, and the look on his face made Zacky realize he had just made matters so much worse. Now, the look on his face made Zacky think he was capable of murder.

“What did you just say?” Matt asked in a deadly calm voice. Scratch his previous thought, Zacky now thought Matt was capable of murdering him. “You know what, never mind. I’m just going to beat it all out of the little fucker.”

And with that, Matt ran off in the direction Brian had just gone moments before. Zacky heard another pair of footsteps coming, so he turned to his right to see who it was this time. He saw Ellie, dressed sloppily with messy hair and makeup. She looked worried and frantic.

“Zacky, this is not good!” Ellie cried as she ran up to him. She was out of breath. “The shit just hit the fan!”

“Yeah, I know,” Zacky replied cautiously. “There’s a small possibility that I actually made things worse. I thought you had told Matt about the whole baby thing, but apparently I told him about that myself. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, Zacky!” Ellie yelled out in frustration as she grabbed a fistful of her own hair. “Now Matt’s really going to kill him, I’m not even joking. We have to get down there before he hurts Brian!”

“How did he find out about you two if you didn’t tell him?” Zacky asked.

“It’s a long ass story that I don’t want to or have time to tell,” Ellie answered as she grabbed Zacky’s hand, tugging him along with her. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, they heard loud shouting, with Jimmy and Johnny trying to hold Matt back. Brian was backed into a corner with nowhere else to go.

“If you thought I was going to kick your ass before, now I’m really going to beat the shit out of you!” Matt yelled with venom. “I can’t believe you had the nerve to knock up my sister! What the fuck were you thinking?!”

Matt struggled to throw Jimmy and Johnny off of him, and he halfway succeeded, sending Johnny flying across the room. Zacky quickly ran over to help Jimmy out because apparently Matt was like a beast when he was beyond angry.

Ellie ran over and stood in between the two of them. She knew her brother wouldn’t hurt her, so she was hoping this was going to be the way to save Brian’s ass until they could find a way to calm him down.

“Matt, listen to me; you need to take a deep breath,” Ellie said calmly. She may have sounded like everything was alright, but on the inside she was afraid that something bad was going to happen.

“No, Ellie, this shouldn’t have happened, this couldn’t have happened!” he yelled in return. “And aside from sleeping with you, which is bad enough since they all knew you were off limits, he got you fucking pregnant! How could you let him do that to you?”

“I’m not pregnant now,” Ellie said, raising her voice. His words were starting to hurt her. “It happened about five years ago! All of this is done and over with!”

“Let go of me!” Matt growled as with one final attempt, he wrenched his arms from Jimmy and Zacky’s grip. “Now, as much as I don’t want to look at either of you right now, I’m kindly asking you to get the fuck out of my way Ellie so I can take care of this douchebag.”

“No,” Ellie said as she backed up farther. Her back pressed up against Brian’s front and she felt the heat from his bare chest burn right through the clothes she was wearing. She wondered why everything always had to end up this way. It seemed like nothing could ever go right in her life. “I won’t let you hurt him. Brian has been one of your best friends since you could walk, and no matter what happened in the past between him and I, he doesn’t deserve to be beat up by you. If anyone is allowed to be mad about what happened, that’s me and no one else. I’ve dealt with that already, Matt, because it happened five fucking years ago.”

Matt sighed and then looked at the floor. Ellie could tell that he wasn’t going to fight anymore, and his initial anger had disappeared. What she didn’t know was what he was going to say next was going to hurt her much worse than any physical blow.

“I just didn’t think you were ever going to be that girl, Ellie,” Matt said, and the disappointment in his voice hit her like a slap in the face. She felt the tears come to her eyes because she didn’t deserve to be talked to that way. He didn’t know what had happened, and he couldn’t judge her for it.

“Matt, I-“

“No, I don’t want to see or talk to you right now, Ellie,” he said as he walked towards the door so he could go outside to cool off. The room was encapsulated in silence as everyone watched everything happen. It was like they were watching the plot of a movie play out in front of them. They were shocked over what had happened and over how he had just treated the sister he always had the highest respect for.

Ellie looked at her brother’s back as he left. Val had been standing in the kitchen and the look of sadness and shock on her face summed up everything that had just happened. Val gave Ellie a quick look of sympathy before running after Matt so she could talk some sense into him.

Ellie felt them coming before they even reached her mouth. She felt the deep, gut wrenching sobs she had known for so well and for so long begin to grow deep in her stomach, and she knew she couldn’t break down in front of all of these people. She had to find a way out as soon as possible, and she began to panic a little bit as she thought she might not make it. Everyone in the room was staring at her, and her alone, and she felt like a heavy weight was pressing down on her chest, making it impossible to breathe. Now, if she could only get out of that room where everyone was looking at her like she was on display…

She had always known Matt would react like this, which is why she never told him what had happened. She had always been afraid that he would think less of her, and just moments ago, he had confirmed those exact fears.

Somehow, even in the deep hole she was currently sinking into, Ellie felt something squeezing her hand, and she realized it was Brian. His warm hand covered her own, and it was like he was pulling out of the abyss she had been falling in for so long. He was silently telling her that he was there for her, that he would help her.

Ellie didn’t want his help though.

She pulled her hand out of Brian’s grasp and turned to face him. As soon as she looked at him, she regretted it though because she wanted, more than anything, to take the solace he was offering her.

“I’m going to go upstairs,” she said. She focused her gaze on a spot on the wall so her tears wouldn’t spill over her eyelids just yet. She wouldn’t allow herself to cry in front of all of these people. Ellie heard her voice as she spoke, and she thought it didn’t even sound like her anymore. It sounded like the voice of a girl who had been so warn down that only a shell of a person remained. “I need to be alone for a little bit.”

No one in the room moved to stop her, or even spoke to her. All they did was watch as she climbed the stairs so she could cry her heart out without a watching audience.

Ellie was lying on the bed, curled into a ball, with her eyes closed. Her eyes hurt too much to open them because earlier, she had cried until tears no longer could stream down her face. She was sure her mascara and eyeliner from the day before was all over her face where her tears had carried it, but she didn’t care enough to clean it up.

She heard the door to the room open, but she didn’t care enough to look and see who it was. Everyone had just watched her be humiliated by her brother, so her appearance at the moment wasn’t any worse than that. She didn’t care who saw what she looked like.

Ellie felt the bed sink as whoever had walked into the room sat right next to her. She still couldn’t tell who it was, but she wanted more than anything for them to go away.

They sat there, not saying a word for a good amount of time. She hoped they just did whatever they came to bother her about already because the only people she maybe would have considered talking to at the moment were either Zacky or Val.

“I want you just to listen to me for now.” Ellie instantly recognized Matt’s raspy voice. She didn’t want to be near him, but she thought as long as she didn’t have to talk, she could deal with his presence.

“When I came in here this morning and saw what happened, something inside of me snapped. I don’t know what it was, but it scared me a little bit. I was so angry at him for going against what I had told him so long ago. I always told all of the guys that you were completely off limits, no questions asked. I know you can make your own decisions, so that’s not why I told them that. I know what Brian is like with women because I used to be like that. I wanted to protect you from the guys like us. We were the kind of person who would use you and then when we got everything we wanted from you, we would dump you on the side of the road.

“I never wanted that to happen to you. I wanted to protect you from getting hurt like that, and when I found out that’s exactly what happened anyway, I was so mad at myself. I don’t mean any of the things I said to you, I was just so mad at myself for not seeing it sooner. And then Zacky told me you had gotten pregnant, and I just wanted to make him pay for taking advantage of you. He could have ruined your life.”

Ellie sat up and looked at Matt. She wasn’t angry at him for what he had done or said anymore. What he had just said was more than an acceptable apology. When everything had fallen to pieces when she was eighteen, she was mad at herself for the exact same reason. She was mad she hadn’t protected herself for what was inevitable with Brian. She was mad that she had let him take advantage of her so easily when she had known what was going on all along.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Ellie?” Matt asked. The pain deep in his voice let Ellie know that he was so upset by what had happened to her so long ago, and it helped her heal a little bit on the inside. It let her know she wasn’t ridiculous for being so hurt for so long. “Why didn’t you let me protect you from him?”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid of what you would think of me, and I didn’t want you to be disappointed in me,” she answered with a scratchy, hollow voice. “I was always the one who did everything right and always followed the rules, and the one time I bent them even a little bit, the worst happened. I still don’t know how it happened; we did everything we were supposed to.”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Ellie. We can’t be perfect all of the time. Hell, look at all of the stuff I’ve done wrong in my life, and everyone is still by my side. I was kicked out of school, but mom and dad still managed to find a way to love me. Sure, they were upset with me, but that didn’t change how they felt about me deep down. I know I was a complete asshole for saying all of those things to you because none of this is your fault. I’ll always love you no matter what, and I’ll always protect you because you’re my little sister. None of this has changed my opinion of you whatsoever, even though it may have seemed that way earlier. Val came outside with me and helped me see that I was way out of line.”

“Val has helped me so much throughout all of this,” Ellie said. “But some of this is my fault, Matt. There were two of us in whatever kind of relationship we had, and it took two people to cause this massive avalanche of problems. I knew how it was going to end the whole time, but I never walked away because I didn’t want to. I let him take advantage of me because I thought that having a part of him was better than having nothing.”

“Oh, Ellie,” Matt said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, but she didn’t cry. She didn’t have anything left to cry with. “Why didn’t you come to me for help?”

“Because I loved Brian so much. I loved him so much that it hurt,” she said with a broken voice. “And no matter how much I tried not to, I still love him as much as the day I left.”

“You left because of him,” Matt said with a tone of realization. It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“Yes, I left because of Brian,” Ellie said with a sigh. She was beginning to wish she had told Matt everything when it had happened, and she wondered if life would be different if she had. “And now, I’m wondering if I should leave again for the same reason. I’m so afraid that the same thing will happen, and I can’t put myself through that again, I just can’t.”

“Well, this time you will have me to help you through everything.”

Ellie would never in a million years wish for another brother because she knew the best one in the world was sitting right next to her, telling her everything was going to be alright.