My Best Friend's Brother

“Are you sure you’re gonna be okay out here?” Freddie asked while handing me a blanket. “I’ll be fine, I’m not about to share a bed with Courtney. Besides, I have these lovely people to keep me company.” I said waving my arms to point out the other three people passed out on the ground and chairs, one of them being Ryan, my ex. Freddie laughed, “I can always make room for you with me.” He said winking at me. I laughed; I knew that Freddie wasn’t trying to get me to do anything, just sleep in his room. “I don’t think Sandy would like that too much.” I said before lying down and pulling the blanket over me.

“Don’t remind me.” Freddie sighed. “What is going on with you guys? Last time I checked you were happy together.” Freddie sat down on the little space that was left next to me. “That was almost a year ago when we first started dating. After four months she just started to change and I didn’t like the new her. I tried to break it off but she threatened to kill herself. I don’t know if she’s serious or not but I don’t want to find out the hard way if she is. I don’t want someone’s death on my shoulders so I stayed with her.” He said with a shrug. He didn’t look at me once. He stared at the wall the whole time; I’ve known him long enough to know that look.

“Hey, come here.” I said holding my arms out. Freddie laid down on the now half empty side of the couch and came into my arms. “I know that’s scary to think of, having someone else’s life on your shoulders but if you’re not happy then you need to break up with her. If she kills herself, yeah it will be distasting…okay I can’t make it sound good in any way, it’s someone’s life we’re talking about.” I said biting my lip. “Thanks for the pep talk Shorty.” Freddie said sarcastically, I looked at him and his eyes were closed. “Maybe you should do something to make her break up with you?” I asked.

“That’s actually not that bad of an idea.” He said; I shifted so that my arms were by my side again. “It’s actually really easy to think of, I don’t know why you didn’t earlier.”

“Just shut up and go to sleep.” He said pulling me closer. “This is almost worse than me sharing a bed with Courtney.”

*~*~*~*

I sat on the small balcony that the apartment was connected to. Everyone was gone besides Sandy and Freddie. I really wanted nothing to do with their fight over something stupid. I was surprised that neither Olivia nor Chad had even texted me in the past few days that I’ve been here. I knew that Chad was busy packing since he was leaving for Stanford in three days but Olivia had nothing to do. Some part of me wanted to talk to them but another part didn’t want me to. I still need more time to get over the whole situation.

“Hey,” I jumped when I heard Ryan’s voice. I looked back and gave him a weak smile. I still hate him for taking advantage of me but not as much. “You heard the fight too, huh?” I asked, Ryan nodded and stood next to me.

“How are you feeling?” I shrugged and looked back out to the road. “Better than before, thanks for being there for me the other day. I really needed that,”

“Are you saying that you don’t hate me anymore?” He sounded so hopeful, a tone that I’ve only heard twice from him at the most. “Baby steps, baby steps.” I said looking up at him. “I’ll take what I can get….Are you gonna talk to them anytime soon?”

“I don’t know. Chad leaves Monday and I don’t really want to leave off on bad terms but at the same time I feel like I should keep some space between us.”

“Well you don’t have to right now but I do think you should at least talk to them before we go back to school.”

“What kind of drug are you on? The Ryan I remember didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone besides himself.” Ryan laughed and looked down at me. “Believe it or not people can change. And like I said the other day, I’m sorry for what I did to you.”

“It’s done and forgotten, let’s just move on. Maybe I’ll actually start to like you as a friend again.”

“Just do all of us a favor and make up with them soon. I think I can speak for all of us when I say we don’t want you to live here much longer.”

“Are you saying you’re already tired of me after four days?!”

“No! Well Sydney may be but that is a whole other story. You aren’t dumb Leighton; you know what goes on in this place. We’re a party house with drugs hidden all over the place. If the cops were to come or something then they would take everyone that lives here or just hangs out here for that matter. You’re like our innocent little angel that we don’t want to get in trouble. It’s not a good idea to get caught up in all of this.”

Ryan was right; there are drugs all over the place here. A majority of the time someone was doing something. No one here had a real job either aside from me. They were all drug dealers. Since everyone had been for a few years I didn’t really have to worry about them.
“Okay, I’ll go talk to Chad before he leaves.” I turned around to go back inside but stopped when I heard glass shattering. “Looks like Freddie tried to breakup with Sandy again.” Ryan said standing next to me. “It might be better if you go talk to him now.”

“I’m going to take your word on that.”