Miserably Loving You.

To say dinner was starting off horribly would be an understatement. Kris was a gorgeous man, and I really shouldn’t have expected anything less with my mother; but he was also very kind eyed and painfully polite. Violet wasn’t having any of that though. As soon as we told her what was going on her nose turned up so quickly I almost got whip lash from watching it.

“So Leighton, you’re graduating this year right?” Kris asked, and just by his voice anyone with a functioning brain could tell why my mom was so infatuated with him. It was deep and soothing and… Well he just actually cared. I felt bad that she felt the need to keep him away from us for so long. I really did like him, and maybe having an actual father figure around the house again wouldn’t be the most terrible thing.

“Yeah, this coming June I’ll be finished!” I said, glancing at my mother who was just beaming with excitement that at least one of her kids wasn’t a complete turd.

“How exciting! Do you have any plans after that?” We all froze at the question. It’s not something any of us like to talk about; especially around Violet. “Any colleges in your sites yet?”

“Well, I have been thinking about that. I kind of want to see a new state, meet a few new people and get my feet wet in the adult world.” I said, glancing over at Violet whose angry demeanor had taken a turn for the worst.

“Hypothetically speaking, if you had the choice to pick any college which one would it be?”

“Oh jeeze… Maybe somewhere on the west coast? Like Oregon or something?”

“Oregon? When the fuck have you ever wanted to go there?!” Violet piped up finally.

“Violet-“

“No Mom,” Violet spouted. “I do one shitty thing and Leighton is out the door all of a sudden?”

“It was a hypothetical question you nut bag.” I groaned and Violet threw down her napkin.

“I’m so sick of this family.” She groaned, throwing up air quotes around the word family. “I lose my dad, I lose my best friend, and now I’m losing my brother too. I just…” She pushed her chair back and ran off crying then. I knew both my mom and I wanted to run after her, but it was probably better to just give her time.

“Oh… I’m sorry guys. What a bad first impression.” Kris said, and you could just hear the sadness in his voice.

“Nah man, don’t worry about it. She’s been erratic like this for a few… well she’s been like this her whole life. You didn’t do anything.” He looked to take some sort of comfort in that, and I earned another awesome smile from my mom.

Though the rest of dinner was pretty quiet, it was still pretty nice. Kris just got better and better as the moments passed. He was a relatively successful guy with no kids which was honestly a plus. Though I wouldn’t mind some other kids around, I think Violet would literally blow up if she had to share any more of her entitled attention.

I left the two love birds alone downstairs and retreated up to my room. I thought about taking off my pants, but I decided against it since there was no telling who would barge in. I tried focusing on my game, but really I memorized the maps so I could play this with my eyes closed so playing really wasn’t much of a distraction.

Violet was probably with Gage right now since she really had no where else to go, and they were probably reconciling. I don’t know why this break up with Gage was making me so uncomfortable, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about it. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that my discomfort stemmed a lot deeper than just my annoyance with my sister, and that scared me. Gage and I only dated for barely a second, he was supposed to be my kid sisters friend and they were both just supposed to annoy me, but he meant a lot more than that.

He oddly took care of me, and I felt safe by him. Not that I didn’t ever not feel safe, but… It was a different type of safe. I wasn’t so exhausted with life when I was around him, he was seriously like a ball of sunshine and now without him I was just stuck in one long cloudy day. I don’t know how he did it, but he felt more like home than my actual home. I liked laying beside him at night because he just calmed down the buzzing in my head. With him next to me, the ringing in my ears died down and it was just us.

No one else had ever been able to do that before, and it made no sense to me why he could.

I sighed and rolled over in my bed to bury my face in my pillows, but before I could even get the satisfaction of smothering myself my door opened.

“Leighton, oh I’m sorry… I was just going to see if you could go check on Violet. Kris and I are going to go get some dessert since I completely flubbed on doing that. But I can stop over there if you’re going to bed.”

“It’s okay Mom, I’ll go.” I said, suppressing a laugh at the thought of sleeping. I had long forgotten about the pills Mr. Callaghan had given me since I had been sleeping by Gage. But now it was looking like I need to reintroduce them into my life.

She gave me a thankful smile before leaving and allowing me to get up and get myself together before trudging over to the neighbors house.

I probably stood there for a total of three minutes before working up the nerve to knock on the door.

“Leighton!” Mr. Callaghan cheers and immediately pulls me under his arm. “What a lovely surprise! How are you?”

“Oh, uh, I’m good!” I chuckled as I looked up at the overly enthusiastic man. “I uh, just came over to check on Violet. Is she here?”

“Yeah, they just went upstairs to watch a movie.” Mrs. Callaghan said as she came out from the kitchen. “I’m sure they wouldn’t mind the company!”

“Oh no, that’s okay. I just wanted to make sure she was okay, and now that I know she is I guess I’ll just be going.”

“Hold up, where’s the fire?” Mr. Callaghan chuckled. “Is everything okay at home?”

“Yeah of course, you know Violet; always making a mountain out of a mole hill.”

“This is true, but are you okay?” He asked and I just nodded. I wasn’t okay, but what could I do? I just had to deal with the cards I was dealt and hope that things didn’t get worse. “Well, you know I’m here for you if you ever just need to talk.” I nodded again, but this time Mrs. Callaghan grabbed my attention.

“Thanksgiving is coming up, why don’t you tell your Mom that we’d love to have you guys over. Oooh, and tell her to make that delicious pie she made last year!”

“I- uh, okay I could do that.” I chuckled. “Would you mind if her boyfriend joined us? I hate that she’s had to keep him away from our family for so long, I think she’d really appreciate it if he could.” Mrs. Callaghan nodded and smiled, way more excited now about the idea than she was initially.

“Leighton?” I turned around to see my sister and Gage standing behind us, and the look in her eyes was right about the same as it was at dinner. She was livid, but at least Gage looked happy to see me.

“Hey, I just came over to check up on you.” I said before pulling Violet in for a hug. She resisted for a second, but then got the hint that I wasn’t caving. “Mrs. Callaghan just invited our family over for Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Yeah I heard.” She said, feigning a grin. “I also heard that moms boyfriend is invited too? That seems a little sudden?”

“Mmmm, yeah no. I think two years is long enough of a wait before including the boyfriend in family dinners and holidays.”

By the look on Violets face I knew I had her beat, but Gage’s parents had left us three alone in the main foyer before I could even have the gratification of showing up my little sister… So the victory was a little less sweet.

“Alright, so you see me, you know I’m okay, why are you still here?” She spat.

“Violet.” Gage said, almost sounding like he was warning her.

“Maybe I wanted to stay and hang out?”

“Who said you’re welcomed too?” I couldn’t help but to laugh, and she knew that if I were to put the question of who Gage would rather have over right now out on the table that she would definitely lose out. And if not a complete loss, he would definitely rather send us both away than choose. But I wasn’t going to do that to him. Instead I just smiled and turned my attention to him.

“I’m sorry our drama bled through over to your house, but thank you for putting up with her.” I said, keeping my voice quiet so the conversation would stay mainly between him and me.

“Yeah, of course.” His cheeks flushed and he smiled up at me which sent my heart into a weird feeling of panic and joy.

“I’ll uh, see you around.” I shot him a playful wink before turning on my heels and going. If I stayed there any longer I may have just kissed him.

This wasn’t fair, but I was really glad to see him without tears staining his cheeks. His smile was too pretty to hide away with such sadness, and I loved that I could just bring it out of him like that.

But of course I found myself at home alone again, so before I let myself ruin that smile I left him with, I took a few of the pills I had and just let the sleepiness take over.