May 17th, 2009
“Why don’t you ever tell me anything?” I shrieked, feeling like pitching my brother right down the flight of stairs that was beside us. “You didn’t tell me that you were dating Emily, and then you failed to tell me that you’ve been dating Dawson for the past few months?”
My brother shrugged, looking like he wanted to slink into his room without having to speak to me. “I told you that Emily and I broke up.”
“But you failed to inform me that you broke up with her for Dawson Summers!” I nearly croaked. “Why do you keep dating people from my school? Stick to your own!”
Austin shrugged again, and I felt like dislocating his shoulder. My brother really told me nothing at all! He didn’t tell me that he had been dating Emily, and he didn’t tell me that he broke up with her so he could date Dawson, who I hadn’t even spoken to since badminton was over, which was over a year ago.
“I have to break up with her soon anyways,” Austin sighed, and I couldn’t tell if he was upset by it or not. “I’m going off to Europe in a few weeks to study abroad…”
I stared at my brother for a moment, and I felt like I was going to faint. “Wait… what did you just say?”
“Oh, yeah,” Austin chuckled nervously. “I’m… kind of studying abroad in Europe instead of going to Yale.”
“You never tell me anything!” I screeched, taking a step forward and bashing my brother in the shoulder. “What happened to the promise that we made when we were kids, huh? We said we were both going to go to Yale!”
Austin smiled at me nervously. “I was kind of hoping that you forgot about that…”
How could I have forgotten the one promise that had changed my life? He was the reason that I had worked so hard to get to Yale, so we could go to school together once I had graduated! But now he was just throwing it all away to go study abroad in Europe?
“I can’t believe you,” I snapped, turning away from my brother and heading down the stairs away from him. “I can’t believe you could just break a promise like that and not even tell me about it until the last minute! I can’t believe you never tell me anything until the last minute! You’re unbelievable! You’re supposed to be my brother, not a stranger!”
“I am your brother,” Austin tried, slipping down the banister and beating me down the stairs. “It’s just I knew that you were going to react this way. I didn’t know how I was supposed to tell you because I knew you’d be upset like you are now. But hey! At least I encouraged you to go to Yale! You’re going to have a bright future ahead of you.”
He had a point, but I wasn’t about to stop being mad at him. When I learned that he wanted to go to Yale when we were children, I made it my goal to become smarter so I could go beside him. We had promised each other that we’d go together. But now everything was changing, and my brother was leaving.
“You’re an idiot,” was all I said to him, turning away and toward the kitchen, where I knew our parents would be. Austin followed right after me into the kitchen, which made our parents ignore me and gush over the fact that Austin was finally graduating.
I scowled, turning away and making my way outside into the driveway. Instead of getting into the car like I was supposed to, I just stared down at my reflection in the car window. I had spent hours on my hair and makeup and making sure my dress looked nice for this occasion. Now all I wanted to do was cry my eyes out and eat ice cream.
Austin was getting older, and so was I. I was sixteen-years-old, by barely two weeks, and he was eighteen. We weren’t children anymore, which meant I shouldn’t have been hanging onto a promise that we had made when we were stupid kids. I shouldn’t have been mad at Austin for deciding to do something with his life. It was his life, not mine.
YOU ARE READING
Girls vs. Boys
Romance(This is the prequel to There's a Thin Line Between Love and Hate. Do not read this until you've read that first, because there will be spoilers...) You've heard their stories before. You know what happened during their senior year. You know about H...
