Chapter 1
(Not complete edited but fixed a few things so it's actually somewhat readable.
“Do you think we should tell Isaac?”
there wasnt many people in the world i trusted and not manu I felt comfortabel speaking to.
Patch, a small, stuffed monkey with blue fur, just so happened to be fortunate enough to be one of them.
He was quiet and supportive. All the qualities needed in a good friend.
“Yeah.” My eyes dropped to my hands, small and wringing around the other in worry. “You’re right. There’s no point.”
My gut twisted a feeling festering there that was hard to identify and harder yet to get rid of.
Patch gave me a sympathetic look his body propped up against the baby blue pillowcase that had been thrown to the end of my bed.
It was almost like fear.
No, it was fear.
But it wasn’t just fear.
Worry, too.
And on their own, either one was awful.
But together, It was hard to function.
Tears brimmed my eyes and it didn’t seem to matter what I did to distract myself, nothing held my focus for very long, My thoughts kept sliding back
Blake Owen.
My brother’s best friend.
He knew my secret.
He could destroy mmy life
Except he hadn’t.
I had been waiting for days for my brother to burst into my room, to demand an explanation to what Blake had seen.
And I didnt have one.
Nothing I could think of sounded believable and no story would get me off the hook.
All I had was the truth.
I was a little.
And Blake had witnessed a side of me that no-one else in the world knew existed.
And for good reason.
My parents wouldn’t understand. My father, he didn’t live with us anymore, but his mind was small and narrow. It was set in his ways and far too rigid to bend to the will of change. I was small and nerdy compared to Isaac, and in my father’s eyes, that was all it took for him to look at me with dismissal.
My mother, honestly, I had no idea how she would react. Either she would accept it, or she would freak.
And Isaac... well, with him, I just couldn’t risk losing him.
He was my best friend, and as soon as Blake opened his mouth, all that could be gone.
“Patch,” I whined again. Reaching up and covering my face with my hands. “Heeelp.”
But the monkey only gazed on quietly, distancing himself from the conflict of my thoughts.
He was coming over today. It was Thursday and Isaac and Blake had some weird tradition of bacon and egg pancakes and movies.
For an older brother, Isaac was pretty cool. He looked out for me, cared for me when I got scared, which was a lot, and would beat the hell out of anybody who messed with me.
There was always an open invitation for me to join them. And sometimes I did. Most the time I would regret it instantly. They liked to watch scary films, Blake’s favourite being zombie-themed, and it was usually always guaranteed to give me nightmares.
With a small whimper, I glanced around my room.
It was the smallest out of the three bedrooms that built up the house, but I had never minded. It felt cosier that way. My bed was a thin single one, a double would have taken up too much space. pressed beneath the window, bedspread plain blue, matching the walls. I had had a SpongeBob bed set that I had adored when I was younger, but when I reached high school, my mother threw it away, claiming it was too childish.
There was a desk and chair at the end of it, a desktop sitting on the top. It was supposed to be for homework, but all I tended to do on it was browsing through YouTube.
A bookshelf struggled to fit against the wall opposite the bed, squished in between a chest of draws and the door. It was riddled with books that had never even been opened, birthday and Christmas presents from my grandparents. It wasn’t that I was ungrateful for them, or didn’t like books. In fact, I loved stories, I just wasn’t very good at reading.
I had dyslexia. It made it hard to read, and I tended to get frustrated so easily that I gave up before I had managed to finish a page.
It was all so plain and seemingly normal.
Other than the teddy bears that sat along the shelf at the top of my bed, or cluster of toys that sat on top of the chest of draws, it was probably the same as every other seventeen year-olds room.
I was pulled out of my thoughts by a knock on the door. It opened a second later, letting me know instantly that it was Isaac. It was the closest he could come to respecting my privacy. Even then, just getting him to knock had been a hard feat.
Seeing him, my blood ran cold. Fear clipped my tongue, waiting for his face to twist up in disgust or his eyes to narrow.
But nothing like that happened. Instead, he smiled. A charming kind of smile that brightened his whole face. It was easy to see why the girls swooned over him. Tall, broad and a head full of sports, he hit the tick list of most high school girls checklist.
Sometimes, I wondered if I was adopted.We couldn’t be any more different if we tried.
He had hair so blond it seemed white, curling into perfect little twists at the ends. I had straight, brown hair that I let grow out to hide my boring brown eyes.
Isaac was 6 foot 1 and still growing, I barely passed 5′6.
He was bright and chirpy, the life of the room. I would only speak to people I knew well, and even then, only sometimes.
Socializing was easy for him. It was crippling for me.
But adopted or not, Isaac was the best kind of brother.
“So, we are watching...” He paused for effect, propping an elbow up against the doorframe. “The terminator trilogy. Are you in, squirt?”
A wave of relief washed over me, my houlders sagging a little. He didn’t know. He couldn’t. He wouldn’t have been calling me squirt if he did, would he?
“No.” I dropped my gaze, my hands suddenly becoming the most interesting thing in the room. “I got homework.”
Isaac laughed. It was a deep, rich sound that filled the room, echoing. “Oz, you haven’t done your homework in weeks. A bit late to start now, dontcha think? ”
There was only one day of school left until half term. Ten weeks of freedom before my final year in hell.
“Look, I know you don’t like things like that, but I promise I’ll look after you. Besides in the first one the graphics are so bad they couldn’t even scare Chloe.”
Chloe was my step sister. Six years old and a princess in training. I liked her, and she liked me. I didn’t mind when she forced me into having a tea party with her and in return she let me play with her toys. An honour very few had without a tantrum. She liked Isaac, but only when he pretended to be her pony and give her piggyback rides. She was a great kid. And her mother wasn’t that bad, either. She didn’t fill the stereotype of evil stepmother, at least.
“Chloe is scared of the cat,” I muttered. “I’m sure a murderous machine is scarier.”
“No, I think I would take my chances with the terminator than go a round with Belle.” Which was understandable. Belle was evil. The only person who could touch her was mom, and even that was iffy. Though, my hands were usually covered in cuts from where I just didn’t seem to learn. “Please, Ozy, come sit with us. We have popcorn. Toffee flavoured.”
Us.
With him and Blake.
Was popcorn an even trade for having to meet his eyes? For seeing a look of possible disgust?
You’re going to have to face him eventually,the voice in my head whispered.
But did it have to be today? I whined back.
It turned out that yes, it had to be today.
Isaac wasn’t taking no for an answer.
And in the end, I nodded. Isaac grinned in triumph. “Awesome. Mom left money for dinner, so... pizza.”
Mom was a nurse, and her hours were often long. Sometimes, I could go days without seeing her, missing each other with our schedules, and sometimes, even when she was home, it was as though she wasn’t home. She slept a lot when she got back.
I understood. Of course I did. But I missed her sometimes.
Our house wasn’t the biggest, but it was cosy and filled with love and warmth. The T.v room was a small, closed-in space, just about big enough to fit in a sofa’s and an armchair. Even still, it was a squeeze and the T.V unit had to be pressed against the wall just to create enough of a walkway to get in and out. Mom said she didn’t mind how small it was. She said it was a fair exchange for how big the kitchen was, but sometimes, I think that she only said that to convince herself.
The rent here was low, and as a single parent, I don’t think she would have been able to afford anywhere else.
Isaac and Blake had been best friends for years. They had met at some sports club at school- I never could remember which one- and had been inseparable ever since. Mom used to joke that Blake should have just moved in, he was here so often.
And like always when I saw him, my tummy felt funny. Like a tingle that made my whole body fill with nerves.
I had never understood why this happened. Why it was only him that had that effect. I had thought at first perhaps it was jealousy. That maybe it was because my brother paid him so much attention, but I ruled that one out after a while. I didn’t seem to care that they hung out together. In fact, I loved it when they did because it meant that I got to be around him more.
And today was no different. My stomach flooded with that unidentifiable feeling. Even though fear still gripped my body, even though I could still feel just how mortified I had been.
Nobody was in.
It was just me.
I had taken the opportunity to be more myself, fishing out my box of secrets from beneath my bed. It was a building collection, each one bought carefully, but I adored every single item in there.
I had a pacifier, which I liked to call my Binki, that attached to a clip with my name on.
Well, Oz, on it.
My full name was too long to fit. There was a blue sippy cup, decorated with little tiny anchors. The handle had broke on one side where I had dropped it, too clumsy for my own good, but it didn’t leak so I kept it until I could buy another. My colouring book and crayons lived in there. Stickers, the little pink rings Chloe had given me as a gift. There were a few other things, but I didn’t use them as often as the others.
I had been sat there, binki in my mouth, wearing one of my old all in one wolf onsies that I was slightly too big for, having had them since I had been twelve, with a sippy cup at my side, Patch sat in my lap and colouring away happily, knowing that I had an hour at least before anybody got back.
I couldn’t have known that Isaac was going to send Blake back to the house to bring me dinner. Apparently he wasn’t coming home after basketball practises like normal.
He had Isaac’s key, so there was no knock on the door. I was too absorbed in my colouring to notice any noise.
He had come in.
And we had both just stared at one another.
Him in shock, me in horror.
He had set the bag of McDonald’s food down slowly, his eyes never leaving me. It seemed like a lifetime before he spoke, only to blubber out Isaac’s message and then bolt.
He was sat on the armchair as I walked in, his handsome face darkened by shadows as the light of the T.v flickered across it. His head was tilted at a strange angle, strands of dark hair spilling to one side.
His eyes flicked up as I entered, the green of them as bright as ever.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but as he smiled, the same, cheeky, charming smile he always did, it was as though nothing had happened. As though Monday night hadn’t occurred.
And though while I was grateful, the last thing I wanted was for things to be awkward, I couldn’t help but feel that the issue was far from over.
“Odd bod,” he greeted, using the same little nickname he had called me for years.
“Hi.” My voice was more of a high pitched squeak, to which seemed to amuse him, eyes crinkling as he smirked a little.
“Did you order already?” Isaac’s hand came down on my shoulder, forcing me further into the room so that he could pass. I sat on the sofa nervously, Isaac dropping down on the seat beside me carelessly, swinging his legs up so that they hung over my lap. He grinned, winking before propping his hands up behind his head.
“Nope,” Blake said, popping the P. “Was waiting for you two Muppets to tell me what it was we were ordering.”
“You know Ozzy will only eat cheese.” There was a teasing edge to Isaac’s words but I still felt my cheeks flush. I would eat other pizzas, but only after I had successfully picked off every topping until only the cheese remained.
“Yeah, but there’s an offer on. Buy one, get one free, dude. Two pizzas!” The grin that crept across his face matched the excitement that rang in his voice. “But figured I’d pretend to care what topping you wanted before I ordered the one I wanted.”
Isaac smirked. “Meat feast.”
Blake punched the air in victory.
I couldn’t help but smile. If nothing else, they were entertaining.
The lights had been dimmed and the food ordered. True to his word, Isaac had fixed a bowl of popcorn.
As I snuggled into the sofa, kicking off Issac’s legs, I couldn’t help but wish that whatever happened in the future, it didn’t screw up the relationship we all had. I didn’t want to lose my brother or his best friend.
