My Best Friend's Brother

It was dead silent while Olivia and I sat on the couch that night. “I can’t believe you did this.” Olivia said through her tears. She’s been crying ever since the whole thing went down at the gym. “If anything she should only hate me.”

I don’t know why I kissed Brenda in the first place. I was happy with Leighton and I do love her. I guess hormones got the best of me this time. I needed to talk to Leighton though. All that Olivia told me was that she went to live with Sydney. “Why did you even have to tell me about it? I would have been fine without knowing! Then I could be pissed at you and I’d have my best friend back!” Figures, the only reason Olivia was mad was because Leighton left, not that she just had her heart broken.

“Some best friend you are.” I said rolling my eyes. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” She asked looking up at me. “You don’t care that Leighton is hurting, why would you? You only hangout with her whenever Dalton isn’t around, ever since you started dating him Leighton came in third place since you put yourself in front of everyone else!” Of course I love Olivia, she’s my little sister, but this went too long without being said.

“I was always there for her!” Olivia’s voice cracked when she shouted. “You were there for her when her parents died. After three months you just didn’t really care. You weren’t there for her through thick and thin like best friends are supposed to!”

“She seemed fine!” I got up and started pacing the room, trying to calm down and what to do about Leighton. “Of course she seemed fine, she wasn’t going to mope around and bring all of us down! She lost her parents for Christ sake; it takes more than three months to get over someone’s death, especially when they’re that close to you!”

Olivia looked down at her hands and sniffled. “So I wasn’t there for her at that part, I would have been there for everything else if she ever did go through anything else!” I stopped in front of her. “You don’t get it do you? That was the hardest part of her life and if it weren’t for her other friends and Justin and me, she wouldn’t be here right now! And for your information she actually did go through other stuff, you were just too caught up in your own life and your boyfriend to where you didn’t see anything.”

“What are you talking about?”

"After you stopped spending time with Leighton she started cutting and she’s tried to kill herself at least three times. I’m the only one here that noticed and I would’ve said something but she said that she’d stop if I didn’t tell anyone and so I didn’t. It seemed to stop for a few months but then I noticed again. Did you ever notice that she only locked her door a few times and that she always wore bracelets?” I know that I shouldn’t have told Olivia even though Leighton stopped cutting but she still didn’t want anyone to know.

“So you’re trying to turn this whole situation around on me when this is all your fault?” Olivia asked getting up from her seat. “No, I know it’s my fault for cheating and that was my stupid mistake. I’m gonna try to fix it but my point was that you were a horrible best friend to Leighton and she deserves a better one. She deserves better than both of us.”

“Well if you must know, I didn’t tell Leighton because you are my brother and we were always taught that family comes first.” Olivia said calming down, she was no longer crying but it was obvious since her eyes were red and puffy. “True, but we were also taught that Leighton and Justin are family. Mom and Dad said that. Plus she was your best friend; best friends should tell each other if they know that their boyfriend is cheating, regardless of who they are. I mean if our roles were switched I would’ve told her as soon as I found out.”

“God, I really am a horrible best friend.” Olivia said, I could tell that she was near tears again; I pulled her into a hug. “She’s never gonna come back here.” She sobbed. “Well she has to eventually, Justin still lives here after all.” I said trying to lighten the mood. In all honesty, I wasn’t doing much better than Olivia, I was just better at hiding it. I cried the whole way home.

“Olivia, do you know where Sydney lives?” I had an idea and it wasn’t the brightest one in the world but it was worth a shot. Olivia shook her head. “I just know that she lives with a ton of druggies and stuff. Why did she go with her? I don’t want her to end up like that!”

“Leighton’s smart enough to stay away from that stuff, you know how she is around it.” I said rubbing my little sisters back.

“Well whatever you guys did, you messed it up big time.” Grandpa said coming into the room. While Olivia and I were in here having our little fight my grandpa went to go call Leighton to see if she was coming back since she wouldn’t answer the phone for either of us.

“What did she say?” I asked, Olivia let go of me and faced our grandpa. “Well from the sound of it she’s worse than you Olivia. She could barely talk. I had to talk to some guy named Ryan.” My heart sunk in my chest. It was bad enough that I broke Leighton’s heart and I was about to fall to pieces but the only Ryan that I could think of was her ex and she wanted nothing to do with him. “Do you know if he lives there?” Olivia asked for me, she knew how much Leighton hated him too.

“Yeah he does, but he said that Leighton doesn’t want to see either of you and if she needs more stuff or wants to see Justin she’s going to do it whenever you aren’t around. Honestly I don’t even want to look at either of you right now, especially you Chad. You made this situation so bad to where she won’t even come to see her younger brother and you know how much she loves him, he’s the only actual family that she has left here. Leighton has every right to not want to be around you but at the same time, we all know Leighton and she’s such a sweet girl that she’ll end up forgiving you eventually. It may not be today, tomorrow or even before Chad leaves for college, hell, you girls could probably graduate before she does.” Grandpa said looking between the two of us.

“I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to just give her space, the girl has been through enough. If she does happen to come over when you’re around just leave her alone to do whatever. If she wants to take Justin then let her.”

“But you have custody of him. Actually you have custody of both of them.” I pointed out; if Leighton came around when I was here I don’t think I’d be able to just ignore her. I would need to talk to her. “Leighton’s almost eighteen and she’s responsible. Justin is her little brother and she has the right to take him whether she’s eighteen or not. He’d be just as safe with her as he is here.”

“Grandpa I don-“

“Leighton would die if that meant that would save Justin. If she wants him, she can have him!” Grandpa said cutting Olivia off, our grandpa rarely shouted so it caused both of us to jump. “Just stay away from Leighton and don’t make things worse than they already are.”