Miserably Loving You.

I gave her five minutes.

Five minutes to change her shitty attitude and realize what a childish brat she was being. Five minutes to run out of her room and go fix things with her best friends. Five minutes before I go in there and tear her a fucking new one for acting like an entitled little shit who thinks that it’s okay to push around your friends. So as soon as the twenty minutes were up, I went in.

“What the hell is your problem?” I asked, a little more venom in my voice than I had initially meant.

“Leighton, not now…”

“Not now? Who the fuck do you think you are Vi?”

“Leighton, I said not now.”

“I don’t give a shit what you said.” I snapped. “From the moment I asked him out, you were all he thought about. Every fucking second we spent together was him worrying about how this was going to affect you. He couldn’t even enjoy being my boyfriend because he was so god damn worried about you, and I guess he had reason too.”

“Leighton-“

“No, I’m not finished.” I interrupted. “I heard you say that you’ve had your suspicions for a while now? So you’ve had time to think this over and this is still how you’d react? You’ve known that he’s liked me for how long and you still couldn’t let him have that ounce of happiness? Everything is about you isn’t it?”

“No, Leighton…” She sighed, but nothing came after.

“You should have been happy for him and that’s it. Him and I dating has nothing to do with you, absolutely nothing.”

“I just… I don’t want you to hurt him. I don’t want him to hurt you. I don’t want to lose either of you…” I knew this stemmed deeper, but her abandonment issues caused by our dead beat dad had to fucking end. It’s been years and she’s had nothing but love and support, so any residual worry or issue she has with it all self inflicted.

“I’m not Dad.” I said. “But if this is what you really want, then fuck it. So be it.”

“Leighton, what are you talking about?”

“If you want us to break up, then okay. You want this to be about you? Alright.”

“Wait... Leighton, n-“
“You made your bed Vi. I’m not playing this ‘boohoo daddy left us’ game any more. You can’t be happy for mom, you can’t be happy for me, and you can’t even be happy for your best fucking friend… I’m done Violet. We’ll do this your way.”

I left her room then, the look on her face completely fucking priceless. I mean, I hated that I had to put it there, but I couldn’t take this anymore. She shouldn’t be able to control the people in her life like this, so I was going to end this theoretical reign she thought she had.

I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do this though. Do I really break up with Gage to prove a point to my bratty sister? Or what?

I knocked on the Callaghan’s door and waited patiently until Mrs. Callaghan answered with a worried look on her face.

“It’s a long story.” I said, not bothering to wait for an actual question. “But I’m going to make it better.”

She eyed me cautiously before letting me inside. “He’s in his room, go ahead on up there.”

I nodded and made my way up stairs and knocked on his door and when I didn’t hear a response, I decided to take it as an open invitation to come in.

“Mom, I really don’t want to talk right now…” He groaned, and I could hear in his voice that he was probably asleep before this, so I felt kind of bad but I didn’t really have a large time window to do this. “Mom, please just go away…”

I crawled into bed beside him, and I could just feel the confusion radiating off of him as he rolled over to see who the hell was climbing into his bed with him.

“Hey babe…” I said, and it broke my heart that his eyes immediately filled up with tears. “Hey hey hey.” I cooed as he scooted over to me and cocooned himself into my arms.

“I didn’t want this to happen. I just wanted to be happy.”

“I know.” I whispered. “Violet’s not getting her way this time.”

“She’s my best friend though.” He whimpered. “I can’t hurt her like this.”

“You won’t have to… Because I’m breaking up with you.” I heard his breath catch in his throat so I ran my fingers through his hair. “Kind of, you and I will act miserable, I won’t sit at lunch with you two, you get your mom to drive you to school, and I’ll stay in my room when you come over. She needs to see that just because something makes her uncomfortable, doesn’t mean that her attitude gets to ruin it.”

“But what if she finds out that we staged it all?”

“She won’t.” I said, probably letting my annoyance get the better of me.

“I mean… She found out about us once… So…?”

“Would you rather just break up then?”

“No! I just… I don’t want to create a bigger mess than I already have.”

“You didn’t create any mess.” I chuckled. “She would have acted this way whether we told her right away or not. I love her, but she’s a spoiled entitled brat.”

“I guess.”

“So just trust me? It’ll be a little more strained, but I think we can make it work. You just need to act extra sad and sappy, really make her feel bad alright?”

“I really don’t like this Leighton.” He mumbled. “I think it might be too risky, but if it’s the only way...”

“I mean I can’t see any others unless we really break up or we just disregard her feelings and continue openly dating. If we let her see what happens when she reacts this poorly to something that has nothing to do with her, maybe she’ll stop being such a baby.” I said and watched as his facial expressions changed, for a second he almost looked hopeful, but then some emotion, some emotion way bigger than hope took over and it looked as if it had broken him.

“I can’t…” He nearly whimpered. “I just, I can’t risk it with her. I’m sorry Leighton.”

I could see the tears forming in his eyes, he didn’t want to break up with me, but how could a few week old relationship stand up against a lifetime friendship? I understood, it hurt, but I understood.

“I understand.” I sighed before pressing my lips to his forehead. “I’m sorry it ended up this way.” Gage nodded before wrapping his arms around my neck for a tight hug. It broke my heart to feel his body shake like that. We had only been going out for a few weeks, but according to the bits and pieces I heard from the fight, he had liked me for a really long time. This wasn’t fair, especially to him. But what could I do? I couldn’t kick and scream and beg, I mean how ridiculous would that be?

So instead I just had to pick myself up and respect his wishes. Maybe we could try again later on in life, or maybe he’d just find someone else. I don’t know. It was all too much to think about.

“I’ll see you around, Gage.” I said before kissing his cheek and climbing out of his bed. He made a barely audible noise in response and I turned to see what the hell he had said, but he had already cocooned himself back into his blankets so I just decided it was probably better if I just left.

Gage’s parents were down stairs, almost as if they were waiting for me to come down with whatever news I could, but once they saw me their faces dropped as well and they let me go without a single word exchanged.

I really didn’t want to go home, but I really didn’t have anywhere else to go. My only other option just dumped me, so I guess it was just time to go back to normal.

When I finally got inside, Violet was standing in the walk way waiting for me. I took a deep breath to steady myself before I said something rash, and moved past her.

“Did you really break up with him?” She asked, her voice soft, and if I were any closer to her I honestly probably would have lost it and hit her. Did she really just ask me that? As if she had the right to know?

“Nope.” I said, keeping my tone even.

“Okay, good. I really-“

“He broke up with me.” I interrupted her before she got too far ahead with herself. “He was too worried about you to even think about himself.”

“He… He broke up with you?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, I don’t have the patience for this.” I groaned.

“Leighton, I’m sorry!” She called after me. “I can go talk to him!” I stopped dead in my tracks before storming back down the stairs.

“Oh? You think?! You think now is the time? Right after everything is already ruined? Now you think you should talk to him?” I snapped. “Fuck you Violet. It’s a little too late to mend things. You already broke your best friend.”

I turned and headed back upstairs after that, leaving my sister floundering like a fish.

She could chew on that for a little while, I just couldn’t find it in myself to care at this moment. She needed to feel bad. Gage and I did nothing wrong, and yet we were the only ones being punished. Sure we kept it a secret from her, but public or not it wasn’t any of her business.

I was done. Just completely done.