When I got home that day, I stopped my brother before he walked to his room. My heart felt funny in my chest. It didn't necessarily try to leap out in fear, or stutter with anxiety, or bleed with sadness. It just felt like all my emotions had been poured in a blender and pureed so perfectly that there was no way to distinguish one from the other. My chest hurt and my heart felt heavy, but I didn't even feel burdened with an anxiety attack. I just mostly felt ready to finally tell Nelson.

"I'm sorry."

He blinked. "For what? Last time I checked, you haven't pissed me off today."

I stepped back and leaned against the door, taking in the confused face of my little brother. I was supposed to protect him against the world, but I was a failure in that category. He was never my best friend, but he was still my sibling, and he was a part of my life whether I liked it or not. As siblings, he was my only 'friend' that had to see me everyday, to live with me, and that wouldn't come and go with the change of high school tides.

"For bringing you pain. For showing the whole school that you kissed your best friend's girlfriend."

He shrugged. "Okay, well I deserved that. I thought we already talked about this."

"No, you don't understand," I said calmly, because all I felt in this moment was a weird sort of calm. "Nel, I'm a fucking coward, and I'm sorry I was never honest with you."

"Ki, don't- it's fine."

I pushed myself off the door and walked over to the couch, sitting down and patting the spot next to me.

"I have a lot of homework," he muttered lamely. "I don't want to talk about this again."

I shook my head. "Sit."

"Kiley-"

"No, you wanted an explanation. I'm ready to give it if you let me." I stared and he stared right back. I didn't think he would listen. He was probably tired of me, tired of this. I could see why. Yet, he walked over and sat down next to me, albeit a little far, and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I want to take responsibility," I started as my heart suddenly decided to start thumpthumpthumping. "Because I can't pretend that I'm okay anymore. But I also can't pretend I didn't hurt people, or become hurt."

He tilted his head to the side as he usually did when he was interested in what you had to say but didn't want to make it obvious.

"I'm going to tell you the story of how I killed someone, and how I let two people blackmail me into hurting others."

I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head from widening so much. I almost laughed at his shocked expression, but I knew the situation was too serious, so I started on with my tale. Just like I did with Janessa and Kalila, I started at the very beginning with the boy who harassed me and I later killed, to where we were right now: revenge as I tried to take my life back.

Throughout my tale, Nelson's face constantly changed expression. I was terrified to think about his final reaction, yet I also wanted to know what he thought of me. Did he blame me for everything like I blamed myself?

When I finish, heart racing, face flushed, my brother did the last thing I expected: he hugged me. I expected him to yell, to possibly express pity, or maybe to walk away in disinterest. The last thing I expected was for him to wrap his arms around me and hug me tight. I kind of sat there, stiff, until I realized that I should probably return the hug. After a while of sitting there, I felt awkward and went to pull away.

"This is the last time I'll hug you for a while, so enjoy it."
I laughed, and then it choked and I felt tears threatening. I was tired of crying to I willed them away, hugging my brother tighter.

When Nelson let go, I could see the anger in his eyes. I figured he would turn his anger towards me. I kind of deserved it. After everything he'd been through, I didn't deserve to sit there and tell a sob story.

"I'll kill them," he said quietly.

"You're not killing anyone," I replied firmly. Why did he feel so protective of me?

He pushed himself off the couch and tugged a hand through his hair as he began to pace. "It's not fair that they can get away with this. They're asses, Kiley. They think that they run the damn school? They think that they can just ruin our lives?"

"You think I don't want them dead?" I asked, my voice so scary that my brother stopped pacing to face me. "You don't think I've had to think about them and what they've done to me for the past year? Killing them would be too easy, but to expose them would make them hurt at least half as much as me."

"So, how are we doing that?"
"We? You're my little brother. I don't want you to get involved with this."

"I'll do it anyway!" He exclaimed. "You think I won't help you? Does Dad know? He can report them to the school."

I sighed. "He knows. But I have something else planned. If you want to help, just lie low for a bit, okay?"

"Tell me what you're planning."
"Only if you promise not to do anything yet, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever."

He could be so stubborn sometimes. I stepped close to my brother and gripped his shoulders. "I will tell you, but this is not your fight, Understand?"

His gaze was impassive.

"I'll tell Dad that you're going to do something stupid. I'm not joking, Nelson."

"Okay, fine. But you tell me everything from now on. Deal?" He stepped out of my grasp and crossed his arms over his chest. He could be a stubborn little shit.

"Okay, deal."

----

I thought, no, I knew that I had one more person to come clean to, but I wasn't sure how to construct the proper sentences. I felt like a well of words talking to Nel, but now the well had run dry and someone was shoveling dirt into the ground so I could never collect from the well again.

I just felt like the one person who believed in me and wanted to help me the most, besides my family, was him. He blindly decided to help me, to be nice to me, albeit it took a while. Now that he was my friend, and he drove to see me in the middle of the night, and he was working Nina to find out dirt on Stacie, things felt so different. Too different.

I was tired of talking about myself and throwing myself a pity party. I was just tired. But I still sat in my room with my phone clutched in my hand at eleven pm, his contact on the screen. His contact picture was an off-guard picture he didn't know I had taken and I stared at his face mid-laugh while I told myself to just do it, push the button and call him. Why couldn't I just do it? I looked at my closed bedroom door, no light tunneling underneath from the hallway. Nel probably wasn't awake, or maybe I could ask for his support. He'd tell me to make the stupid call.

So, I did that, I made the stupid call, pressed the stupid call button. It rang, but it was still in my hand on my lap rather than against my ear. I pressed the speaker button, and then I pressed it again, turning the speaker off. I brought it to my ear just in time to hear a soft "hello".

I didn't know what to say. To really say. I just went with a plain "hello" back. My voice sounded strained like maybe I had the beginning of a cold. The thing was my body wasn't fighting an illness, but my mind was.

"So, you are capable of calling at a decent hour," August joked.

"Decent enough," I responded.

Silence. "Is something wrong?"

"What, I can't just call my friend to see how life is going? Or do I need to make an appointment?"

"Of course not, but I can tell by now."

"Oh," I said stupidly. "Are you sure?"
"You want to meet up? Same place as last time?"

My heart was pounding against my ribcage. It would be easier to talk there. It was so nice and calm. Wasn't that what I wanted? A conversation?

"I don't want to be a bother."

"I don't know why you always think you're a bother. You're not. I'm on my way because I want to be."

Did I really want him to be? Because then we had to talk about it, and I wasn't sure I really wanted to.

"Okay, sounds good." Sounds good? That sounded so stupid!

"Have they been messing with you again?" He asked.

Why was he asking that? "Not like today or anything, why?"

"It just sounds like something is wrong, and aren't they your main problem?"

I snapped, "You're with Nina all day. Shouldn't you know?" I didn't even realize their interaction bothered me so much.

An engine revved to life and I heard the ding of a car. "Sorry, I didn't hear ypu, I just got in the car. What did you say?"

"Oh, I said they didn't bother me today."

"Good."

"Yeah."

More silence followed.

"Drive safe, let me get ready." I hung up and walked downstairs to throw on a pair of shoes. He arrived in no time, and I left the house wearing sneakers and cotton pajamas. The whole ride gave me deja vu, and I tried to remember how happy and special I felt last time, but my anxiety quickly won. I drummed my fingers on my legs so they would have something to do other than shake. Thankfully, August drove in silence.

We arrived at the desolate airport road, It was midnight at this point, so the planes weren't flying, but were probably resting in their hangers. A slight breeze ruffled our hair as we left the vehicle, and the long grass on either side of the road swayed side to side. If I wasn't so nervous, I might have smiled and gulped in the fresh air. Instead, I stood in the middle of the road like an idiot.

"Kiley?" He said my name softly, like I might break. I was already broken.

"Any updates with Nina?
"Let's not talk about that right now. It won't make you feel any better."

I shrugged, wrapping my arms around myself. I was starting to feel cold. "Maybe it will, who knows. Maybe she's more miserable than I am." Or maybe he had found a secret I could use against her or Stacie. That would make me feel a lot better.

"Why are you miserable?" He was standing in front of me now, and I realized I was staring at the ground.

I opened my mouth and then closed it. Come on, I have to tell him, I thought. This was my chance. I could have said, "I'm miserable because I'm being blackmailed for killing someone who was harassing me." It was so much more than that, but it was a starting point.

"I have told everyone what they did, and you're the last one I have to tell."

He frowned. "What did they do this time?"

"No, like the first time. The reason they hate me, and I hate me," I said in a rush.

"Oh."

"Yeah,"

"You want to tell me?" He asked. Stepping back a little, studying me. His face softened, and I felt like he pitied me a lot. I guess I was pretty pitiable.

I wanted to tell him, but a part of me was scared. Janessa and Kalila were like my girl best friends. It almost felt like good talk, in a weird and twisted way, when I told them. Nelson was my brother, and I had wronged him because of this situation, so he deserved to know why. But August didn't feel like a friend the same way that the girls did. He never saw me as a charity case like I knew his cousin did. He didn't originally talk to me because we had a common enemy like Janessa. At first, he didn't even like me, but now was different. He took me places in the middle of the night when I was sad, and he truly cared. No one had shown this much care before, and certainly not a boy.

I wasn't completely stupid. I felt this way because the last boy to give me attention was... him. Damien. The boy I pushed down the stairs. Because no one could ever like me back, because I was a stupid girl no one liked.

Everyone else understood, but what if he saw me as a murderer? Or was there anything to understand because I technically did kill him?

"I hate this," I sighed. "Hate this story, hate everything about the past year."

"That's okay," he said. "It's okay to hate what's happened to you. It's okay to feel anger, and sadness."

He told me about his sister dying, how he blamed himself. I owed it to him to tell him the rest of my story. He was the first person I even tried to talk to about this.

"There was a boy."

His expression flickered ever so slightly. He sat down in the middle of the road and patted the spot next to him. I obliged. The tar felt cool through my light pajamas. A tear slipped down my cheek and he leaned forward and wiped it away. His touch felt calming, another human showing me what it's like for someone to care.

"And..." I trailed off. I looked into his soft brown eyes and I could see the care. Would it disappear if I told him?

"Just breath."

"I can't tell you," I said softly, pushing off the ground and wrapping my arms around myself. Tears poured down my face at this point and I felt nothing but pain in my heart.

"I don't want to be rude, but you told Kalila and that Janessa girl I know for sure. Your brother, right? Just pretend like I'm them. Nothing is different." He said it very sweetly like he cared, not like he was angry, but I could understand if he was annoyed.

"You! You're different!" I exclaimed, throwing my hands in the air. My back was still to him, and I stared out at the grass. Someone needed to cut it.

I heard his breath catch. "Did I do something wrong?"

No. He didn't. He did too much right. And I did everything wrong my whole life. "I can't tell you now."

"I don't understand." He sounded hurt, and that broke me even more.

I turned around to face him, but I couldn't look him in the eye. I looked somewhere over his left shoulder instead. "I'm sorry."

"I won't judge you, I promise. It's their fault, not yours."

I yanked a hand through my hair, wincing as it caught in a million knots. "Can you just take me home?"

"Okay. I just, I don't know. I'm helping you and I never asked why, and I'm not saying you owe me, but I just feel hurt that you told everyone but me. I opened up to you, too. I know its hard, but, I just don't know what to think."

"I'm just a broken mess, okay? I just can't," I snapped.

"It's just, you're not the only one. I want to help you, I really do, but damn, you're not the only one hurting. It's just, you always seem to have this mindset that your only personality trait is being sad all the time. I know you've been hurt, but pitying yourself doesn't help," he stated. His voice raised a bit, but it didn't necessarily hold malice. He just sounded more stern than usual, but it still upset me a bit.

I looked him straight in the eye. "You don't understand."

Hurt flashed in his eyes. "I literally told you the thing I'm most ashamed of. I told you how much I understand. But you don't want to hear that."

Trembling in every limb, I stormed back to the car and hopped in. After a bit of a pause, he followed. The ride home was full of silence. The hurt was permeable. I just couldn't tell him, and now I ruined everything. I just wished he would have understood how much I was hurting. I was hurting a lot.

When I left his car, I went up to my room and cried. I wondered why I was alive in the first place.

-----

I don't know if anyone is still reading this because I'm the worst at updating. Senior year sucks, and so does not having any inspiration so. But here's a long chapter (almost 3,000 words) to make up for it. Enjoy.

Thoughts?

-Sarah