“I don’t know, are you?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Iseeyou, but you’re doing this whole staring-ever-so-dreamingly-into-the-distance thing again.”
“I wasn’tdreaminglystaring anywhere. I was…” about to bawl my soul out one more time at the thought of Reece.
My family didn’t know about our breakup yet, mostly because I feared what would happen once they did. It wasn’t like my father would’vephysicallyhurt Reece, but there was a little voice in the back of my head telling me that this breakup would have more negative effects on my father and Colin’s relationship than it had on Reece and me.
Maybe not, but I didn’t want to risk it.
“Whatever.” Elliot shoved his present against my stomach now, practically forcing me to pay attention to it. “I paid for it with my own money this time.”
“Oh, so you didn’t steal something from my room two months ago just to give it back to me now?”
He shook his head but laughed. “Nova did.” Of course. “Open it,pleaseee.”
“Fine.” I finally took the present from him and ripped it open. Usually, I would’ve opened the present all neatly andcarefully, but as we have already established, today wasnotmy favorite birthday.
Once the present was open and I got to look at it, I felt like the most horrible sister known to humankind.
For the past three months, I had asked my dad to buy me these new skates. Mine were still good, so he said no. Apparently, if I wanted something new while I still had at least three unused items of the same kind, I could use my own money to buy it.
But skates were expensive, and I honestly didn’t feel like spending hundreds of dollars on skates. So when Dad said no, the skates I had seemed pretty good to me.
“Elliot.” My voice was choked with tears.
“I only saved half of the money, Brookie. But Reece gave me the rest so I could give them to you. Are you happy?”
Reece gave him money. God, could he get any more perfect?
“Reece helped you with this present?” The tears swelled more and more in my eyes. Now no longer because I was touched by the fact that my ten-year-old brother decided to buy me the skates that I had wanted for a while, but also because apparently, my ex-boyfriend helped him.
Elliot nodded. “Yeah. He’s pretty awesome.”
Just when I was about to thank my brother for the gift, someone rang the doorbell. There was only one person who would’ve rang the doorbell instead of simply marching inside.
All of my uncles had a key.
“Oh, I think Brooke’s still asleep,” I heard my dad say.
“Did that ever stop me from coming in?”
My breath got caught in my lungs the moment I heard his voice. My knees were moments away from giving in, myhead spun, and the tears that threatened to leave my eyes now rolled down my cheeks.
Why did breakups have to hurt this much?
To be fair, I’d never been in any other relationship before, so I didn’t actually know that breakups werethatpainful until… well, until Reece.
“Brookie?” Elliot took the skates from me and set them down on the floor. He then grasped my hand in his. “Are you okay?”
I nodded without wanting to.
I couldn’t remember a single day in my life when I genuinely lied about my feelings to my family. Well, okay, I could count a few times when I lied to mysiblingsabout them. They were all much younger than me and shouldn’t have to worry about their older sister and her stupid boy drama.
But I had nevernottold my dad about what was going on in my life. In fact, Dad was always the first person I went to when things got tough. Now look at me: lying and hiding my emotions to avoid a possible war between the only people who truly meant something to me.
While I knew that my father would’ve always taken my side, Colin would’ve always taken Reece’s.
The last huge fight we had, Colin and my dad got involved and it wasn’t pretty. They didn’t talk for a week. Once siblings and kids get involved, even the longest and strongest of friendships break.
I couldn’t do that to my family.