Benji

When I stomped through the house to go and pick up Kyle, it was empty. I assumed Benji had gone home while I’d been fuming in my room. A small part of me was still angry with him, that he hadn’t just told me what had happened. And yet, another larger part of me wanted to go over to his house and apologise, wrap my arms around him and kiss his forehead and make everything alright.

But I couldn’t do that. Not only was I a coward, but everything wasn’t alright, and I didn’t know how to make it alright, and it was killing me.

So I drove straight past his house without even looking at it, my knuckles white as I gripped the steering wheel. I don’t think I relaxed at all on the way to the high-school.

Kyle jumped in the car quite happily, oblivious to my anger. He turned away from me as he pulled his seatbelt on, not seeing the frown that adorned my features.

“Benji’s not coming,” he said. “He left this morning.”

I nodded stiffly, my teeth clenched. “I know. He came to see me.”

Kyle finally looked at me, properly taking in my tense posture. “Oooh,” he said slowly. “So, I guess you saw then.”

“Yes, I fucking saw,” I snapped. “What the fuck happened to him? He won’t tell me anything.”

My brother frowned, his eyebrows pulling together, confusion clouding his eyes. “I don’t know. He won’t tell me either.”

“What do you mean he won’t tell you?! He’s your best friend, isn’t he?”

“Well, yeah…” Kyle said, uncertainly. “But we didn’t have class together this morning! And then when I saw him he told me he was leaving and before I could make him tell me what had happened, he was gone!”

I growled under my breath, spinning the steering wheel too hard and causing Kyle to lurch into the window. “So, what? Was it someone at school? Has someone been bothering him?”

“I don’t know, Reid! I actually don’t know,” he replied, a stressed tone in his voice. “When we’re together he seems perfectly fine. And I’ve never seen anyone annoying him. But, I don’t know… We don’t have all of our classes together. And… Sometimes he looks kind of sad, but I don’t know! I’ve never seen anyone annoy him and most of the time he’s so happy!”

I muttered profanities under my breath, ignoring Kyle for the rest of the drive home.

I was so angry, absolutely outraged. Benji was hurt and I didn’t know who had caused that hurt, and I didn’t know how to make it better. I was so completely pissed off. I wanted to go to school with him and follow him like a shadow, just so I could pummel whoever even looked at him funny.

I wanted to hurt someone, wanted to pound my fists into whoever had done this, wanted to bruise and scratch and ruin the person who had hurt him.

“Kyle,” I said, turning to him when we’d parked at home. I breathed deeply, trying to calm down. “Please, can you just try and find out what happened. I’m… I’m really worried.”

Kyle just looked at me, his brows furrowed in concern. His pale skin contrasted with his dark brown hair, making him look sick with worry. I was able to identify small features that gave us away as brothers – our hazel eyes, though his were slightly darker; the light smattering of freckles that dusted our cheekbones, and the shape of our noses. At the moment, the biggest difference was that Kyle just looked worried; whereas I was sure I probably looked livid.

“I know,” he sighed. “I’m worried too.”