My Best Friends Brother

Chapter 156

The last week has been fucking killer, I've been doing everything I can to keep things together and it's been rough, but finally we got the call yesterday to say that Heather was coming home and I felt the weight I'd been carrying on my back finally lift.

We all gave them last night as a family but as soon as he opened his eyes this morning Liam wanted to be with her. Josh practically had to wrestle the food down his throat but we eventually got him to eat his breakfast before we left.

He's been bouncing more and more in the back of the car for each minute of this drive, he's so desperate to see her and every red light seems to be taking forever to change. It's always the fucking way when you're in a rush.

"You spoken to May today?" Josh asks as I stare down at the blank screen of my phone.

"Sent her messages but nothing back yet. Dad and I packed the rest of her stuff and took it to Brie's yesterday, Hannah said her bail conditions mean she has to have a permanent address so everything had to move over there quickly." Josh nods but I think he can tell by my face that I'm not massively keen to talk about this right now.

Our whole family is fucked.

Mum and Lee haven't said one word to May, Mum keeps crying whenever she even comes up in conversation but Lee... She's just angry.

Hannah made some kind of deal for her, she arranged for May to give the narcotics and drugs units all the information she had on the Serpent's in exchange for them lowering her charges. Jayce managed to talk Lee into lowering her stance on the charges relating to Heather but she isn't fucking happy about it either, I think if Heather hadn't used that emotional blackmail she's so good at then Lee wouldn't have budged.

Heather isn't mad at May, she doesn't truly understand why anyone is. She just keeps telling everyone it was an accident, she asked me after she came off the ventilator when could she see her aunt but Lee was quick to shut down the idea... She was already upset with everything after the fight with Brie so it wasn't the right time to be asking her to reconsider.

I've never seen anything come between Lee and Brie before, they've always been such an unbreakable force, but this has fucking crushed them. It's crushed us all and battle lines seem to be being drawn, or at least in Lee's head they have.

Brie went to the station with May that night, she walked in there ready to tear that girl apart Dad said, all raging and waiting to rip her sister to shreds... until she actually saw her. One look and it became clear that May had already done enough of that to herself. She was a broken shell, void of anything but self loathing and hate for her own existence.

Instead Brie did what she always does, she was there for her family. I know that she feels some serious guilt that May has been going around everyone's backs without any of them noticing for so long and getting herself into so much trouble, but it's not Brie's fault. May has been so good at keeping everything going on in her life a secret for so many years that this was just another stitch in the tapestry of her web of lies.

I just never thought for a million years that those lies would extend to me.

Me and May always have one rule, one thing that bonds us together eternally; we never lie to each other.

More than anything else, the fact that she couldn't tell me about this has mutilated my already splintered soul to pieces. I should really feel like an absolute hypocrite because I never told her about the crash with Eli, but that was only because it wasn't my secret tell, it could have destroyed Eli's life and he didn't even choose for it to happen – I couldn't out that type of thing. Besides, it posed no danger to my family anyway, it was my decision and my burden to bear without ramifications for anyone else.

What May kept secret nearly fucking killed my niece, it's ripped our entire family to atoms that refuse to fuse back together because now everyone feels like they need to be on a fucking team.

Lee is so angry. Lee is never fucking angry so she isn't equipped to deal with it but right now that's all anyone can get out of her.

I get it, she already has two angel babies and that day she almost lost two more to the heavens, all that pain and all that grief has manifested itself as pure rage directed at exactly one person.

Except she can't attack a fifteen year old child so she's deflecting it, throwing it instead at the one person she knows will take it. Brie.

Her and Brie actually fought a few days ago, like full screaming-fit fought. I honestly thought Lee was going to hit her at one point, and I'm pretty sure Brie would've let her, but Josh wouldn't let that happen, tearing them apart and forcing them back into their corners. I don't think they've physically seen each other again since.

Brie gets why Lee's pissed but she's also the one that is seeing how much this has destroyed May, she knows that my sister has not walked away from this unscathed and as her older sibling she feels the burden of bearing that kind of pain as well. No matter what, May is her family and she won't turn her back on her.

Mum made pretty clear that although she loves May, Heather is her granddaughter and she doesn't want to feel fear that her own grandchildren are unsafe in her house. May had already decided she would go back to staying with Brie before Mum even had the chance to say her piece, a merciful offer from May to spare my mother having to say the words out loud, but it still hurt us both to realise Mum wasn't going to even pretend to put up a fight to keep her with us after all these years.

Dad and May spoke on their own so I'm not sure what was said, but I have a good idea. He didn't want her to leave but he didn't have any choice in the matter. He had to walk away three times when we were packing her stuff just to compose himself, it killed him.

I can't stay in that house without her, with Jayce and Lee at the hospital so much it's just been me and my folks inside those excessively large four walls. It's too quiet there.

Me and Josh haven't spoken about it but slowly I've just started moving more and more of my stuff over to his place, not that he seems to want to stop me. Besides, they've all been so caught up in everything else that I don't think they've really noticed I haven't actually spent a night at the Manor in a week.

Thank fuck for Liam. That boy has kept me fucking sane, without waking up every morning to him jumping onto the bed or spending my evenings practising his times tables and watching him slowly fall asleep to the melody of my voice, I think I would have gone crazy.

He's been through so much yet in this entire process all he's done is be strong for everybody else, this is the same kids that didn't used to hug a single person but yesterday immediately threw his arms around my mum when she started sobbing after getting the call that Heather was being released from the hospital. He's come so far in the short time he's been with us. This boy is too fucking pure for this world, I'm just glad that he gets to see his girl today.

Josh pulls into the driveway, we all didn't want to overwhelm Heather in one go so we decided to take it in slots to come and see her. Liam has been counting down the minutes since he woke up this morning and the moment Josh puts the car into park I watch him rip open the passenger door and make a bolt for the house.

"I don't think I've ever seen him move so fast." Josh jokes, pulling his phone out of his pocket and glancing down at the screen with that same concerned look on his face he's had for days.

I don't need to ask who it is, with the soul sisters not exactly getting along right now he's become a bit of a go between for the two of them. The fact that May is now living so close to Lee was the final straw for her, she practically told Brie that if she let that girl move into her house then she was never going to see Heather again. She didn't mean it, we all know she doesn't mean a lot of the things she's saying right now out of anger but it still fucking destroyed her best friend.

May has mostly been radio silent, her charges mean that she can't attend school anymore and has to do home learning until the situation can be reassessed. She hardly answers my calls and has refused to see Hope, the moment that they released her from police custody she went up into one of the bedrooms in Brie's house and by all accounts has hardly left. She didn't even open the door when I took her boxes over, she's in complete shut down.

It's hard to know what to do, she's my sister and I love her but she fucked up, she fucked up so bad and now she's dealing with the consequences.

Josh looks just as eager as I do to see Heather when we step into the house, we don't have to look far before finding her sprawled out on the couch surrounded by more snacks than her tiny body could possibly ever eat and happily watching every Disney movie she can think of.

Liam looks so grown up, the shy kid that I first met would have probably still been twiddling his fingers on the other side of the room but nearly having lost her he now can't seem to get close enough, slipping himself under her legs and letting them drape over his thighs as he tries to pretend he's watching the film but his eyes just regularly steer themselves to her face.

It's funny, people keep saying that they are going to end up together but I'm not entirely convinced. He doesn't look at her the way I used to look at Josh, it's not want in his eyes, it's need. Almost like she completes a part of him, but that kind of fit doesn't necessarily mean they'll end up a couple though.

We meet a lot of people in life that our souls instantly recognise, just that moment when you feel a spark with someone but those relationships can so often end up as platonic. Lee and Brie used to be my absolute representation of that, soul mates in every sense of the word... until now.

"Hey pocket poppet, how are you feeling?" I kneel down gently at Heather's side, her beautiful smile back on her face exactly where it belongs and it's taking everything I have not to cry just looking at her. She's so beautiful.

One week ago today I watched the life leave her body, I've felt scared so many times in my existence but never anything like that. The pain under that kind of fear was unexplainable, but it feels like a distant memory as I look on into those crystal ocean blue eyes of hers now.

"I'm five by five," she smiles, her voice still raspy from where the ventilator sat in her throat for so long. Those words... May's words. They both miss each other more than either of them probably feel safe to say. "Do you want a smoothie? Dad said I can have as many as I want and I bet I can get you some too."

There's my girl.

Josh comes to kneel down beside me, stroking away a strand of hair that falls directly into her eyes but she can't get herself with her own two hands full, a bag of candy in one and Liam's fingers interlocked with the other.

"Do you want me to get your dad to bring you one?" Heather immediately starts nodding her head, looking over to Liam who nods back with a giant smile as well. Smoothies all around then.

Josh kisses the top of her head, he went to the hospital every moment he had to check on her but I still think he's slightly in disbelief that she's sitting before us so healthy again. "Okay Princess, strawberry and banana?" Heather agrees instantly but when he turns towards the kitchen he steps back again, hesitating before he speaks. "Auntie Beebee asked me to tell you that she loves you, and that the lady in the dress shop added more sparkle to your bridesmaids dress just like you wanted."

This is so fucking unfair on him.

Heather starts clapping her hands like crazy with Liam's still locked with one, but all I can focus on is the pain in Josh's eyes. He hates there being tension between everyone, Brie's wedding is in a very short few weeks and at the moment it feels like half the guest list isn't even going to show up. Steve told us yesterday that right now she just wants to cancel the whole thing, he was trying to hide it but he was clearly fucking devastated.

Heather looks over at the two of us when we start to leave the room, smiling and tilting her head in a way that makes her look far too much like her mother for my liking.

"After Auntie Beebee and Uncle Steve get married, are you two going to go next?" She asks with a smirk that tells me she's definitely fucking better because she's back to happily putting people on the spot like this.

I fucking love her but she's the most lethal combination of Thompson, Davies and Parker that you just can't say no to and she knows it.

Josh starts stumbling over his words and looking everywhere else in the room except for me, Liam suddenly losing interest in his show and paying his full attention to us.

Great.

"We ummm... We haven't been going out that long Princess, we haven't really-"

"Don't you love each other?" Heather interrupts, folding her hands over her chest and giving that firm look that she definitely learned from her aunt. "If you love each other then you are supposed to get married, that's kind of the point of being together you idiots. Don't you listen to Beyonce? Charlie said she's the queen of your people so you should."

Please Heather, why don't you try and be a bit more blunt?!

The two kids barrel their eyes so deeply into me that I fully expect my body to tear in half so they can get a direct view at my soul under such intense fucking scrutiny. I look at Josh but he still doesn't know what to say, it's way too fucking soon but if I'm perfectly honest, I know the fucking answer.

He's my stars. That's not ever changing.

I have absolutely no doubts that one day we'll make that binary connection official... One day... When he's ready.

"Guess we better get you another sparkly dress then, huh? Just to be prepared." Heather practically jumps for joy but Josh still can't make eye contact with me, trailing behind slowly as we leave the room but the moment we are out of everyone's sights his arms loop around my waist and pull my back sharply into his chest.

"You are very fucking sure of yourself Milo Thompson." He chuckles, his lips lightly grazing against my neck.

"Actually," I speak breathlessly as his skin strokes against my own. "I'm very fucking sure of you, Joshua Jones."

His mouth pauses its attack on the side of my throat, those delicate lips hovering just above the surface of my dermis but his grip on me never decreasing.

"That's good to know..."

Yeah it is.

One day we'll have it all; we'll have the wedding, the kids he craves. He'll have his business in a fancy sky rise and I'll have my days on the court. We'll have moments where we're too tired to function, days each of us want to fall apart but don't because we have someone keeping us together. We'll have the house he's always dreamed of on the beach...

I promised to give him the universe, I will always keep my vows to him.

One day, one day we'll have it all.

Just not today.