Falling for my Best Friend

Lifeline

Kilian

When my alarm started blaring this morning, all I wanted to do was grab the clock and huck it out the window. It can't possibly be time to get up yet, I feel like I just went to bed.

My brother, Nolan, got arrested last night. True to form, he used his one phone call on me, his seventeen-year-old kid brother who doesn't have a job or a car. In its own way, I guess it made sense because my father has been missing in action lately.

Some mornings he's in the kitchen before I go to school but we don't talk much. Even when he's been gone for a week or so, I know he is alive because somehow the house is clean and there is food in the fridge. I'm not doing it and I know Nolan wouldn't even try. Even though Dad seems to check in, it essentially seems like he has moved out.

Last night when Nolan called I was desperate for Dad's help but no amount of texts or missed calls were getting through to him. This is the usual routine so it was more frustrating than worrying. I felt trapped; I couldn't exactly go bail my brother out of jail on my bike with the change in my piggy bank.

Once I gave up on getting a hold of Dad, I called Wren, and I don't even know why. I think it's because in all my bad times she was the one who was there throwing me a lifeline. At the same time, what did I think she was going to do for me?

Maybe I just needed to hear her voice so I could breathe. We've been through so much together and I just needed her presence. She answered on the first ring and after I spouted out a ridiculous string of words without stopping to think, she told me to come over for dinner.

She assured me over and over again that we would figure this out together. How could I turn that down? Not only is Wren the best friend I've ever had but she is the best person I've ever known too.

I pulled on my combat boots and was out the door before she even finished her sentence.

It was a short bike ride to her house, past a park then rows and rows of cookie-cutter houses with manicured lawns. It's a route I know well because I've been taking it almost every day since I was twelve.

Wren's house is like a second home to me. After my mom passed away it was nice to be in a house with a mom, home-cooked dinner, and nice feminine touches around the house like flowers and place mats.

My relationship with my father went to pieces when he waited all of two months after my mom's passing to come out as gay and start bringing guys around all the time. Don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with him being gay. Maybe it would have been a little less shocking if he waited a little longer to tell me. This probably would have hurt just as bad if he was bringing women around that quickly after losing mom.

So even though I don't always like the way Wren's dad treats her and Quin, it is nice to be around a dad too, to be around a family that still seemed, for better or for worse, intact.

Wrenny greeted me at the front door with a quick squeeze and she whispered, "Breathe."

I kind of forgot to do that, I didn't realize how flushed my face was or how fast I'd been riding my bike to get there. I let out a long breath I didn't know I was holding, as I looked into Wren's saucer-like blue eyes and almost immediately felt better. She's my best friend, that's why, it's not because lately every time we make eye contact I feel all warm and fuzzy. Definitely not.

The house smelled like Thanksgiving; the savory smell of a wholesome meal that makes my belly growl. A warm glow beamed from the dining room as if it was beckoning me to my feast.

Before I could get to the table, Quin wrapped her arms around my waist. She is fundamentally my little sister too. Weirdly, she's twelve now; I never really thought she looked like Wren but now I see it a little. They both have eyes the color of sapphires and red hair. Wren has been tinting her hair darker since we started high school, but Quin's is still a more natural ginger red.