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|Darren Brook Jr.|

Did Cameron Dallas do his twitter following spree yet?

This is what I ponder over as I miss the second to last step on the spiral staircase in my luxurious California home. Well, what will no longer be my home. I leave for UCLA in about an hour and a half.

My hands fail to catch my weight and I land on my side onto the hard wood floor. The sound of my yelp must have been heard from across the border of California and Nevada. This reminds me of the time that Jennifer Lawrence fell up the stairs at the Grammy's and claimed that it was the one drink that she had had which made her so clumsy. She is hilarious.

I digress.

I sit up and rub my bruised face.

Curse you, Cameron Dallas, and your rock hard abs.

"Ha!" says Fredric Brook, my annoying ass , yet lovable, younger brother of 16. He is scrunched up into a ball on the ground, writhing with laughter, "My ribs! My fucking ribs!" Still laughing.

"SHUT UP YOU SKANK!" I humorously yell as I pick up a throw pillow from one of the many boxes sitting on the floor, and throw it at Fredric.

Not realizing that the pillow was coming straight for his head, Fred continues to laugh, the pillow hitting him square in the face. Caught off guard, he stands up, blinks over twenty times, and stands his ground.

I stifle a giggle. A feather from the pillow is stuck in my brothers perfectly quiffed hair. His dyed pastel purple hair now has a lone feather sitting on top of him.

"BITCH, better hope I don't sneak into your new dorm room at night and strangle you," Fredric says as he runs towards me and tackles me to the ground.

Fredric is 16, a soon to be junior, and a total Drama geek. He dyed his hair almost every two weeks, and he wore white thick framed glasses, a plain white v-neck tight tee, white converse, and a pair of white high-waisted joggers. Whatever he wore, he always seemed to match. The only out of place thing on his body seemed to be his pastel purple hair. The feather being an accessory. Fredric is an out of the closet homosexual who has dated and slept with almost half of the guys in his LGBT+ Club that I created myself when I went to high school.

As for myself, I am also homosexual. As the breath is knocked out of me due to Fred's 168 pound weight, I see a full body mirror in the corner of the living room that reflects my face and most of my torso and lower body. Catching my breath, and Fredric catching his, we both stand from our mischievous and immature quarrel, and stare into the mirror.

Not every gay person loves glitter. Not every gay person is a 'fairy.' Both words in which have taunted me since the minute I walked into high school. But college is a different story. Everyone minds their own business, and the shitheads that don't usually don't get my attention. Cause, you know, I'm a bad bitch.

I wear a see-through white Stussy sweatshirt, the sleeves going down to the tips of my fingers. Under the see-through, i wear a grey tanktop that doesn't even cover my nipples. My abs are showing. My jeans are tight, grey, and ripped at the thigh and just below the knee on both sides.

"You look like a lil hoe..." I hear Fredric say. He had taken his phone out and began to take a numerous amount of selfies from the mirror.

I smile and say sassily, "Bitch, last time I checked, you slept with how many people this month?" We always joke about this, and it's great to see his mouth slightly quiver as he mumbles, "Only 4."

"Only?!" I half-yell, and we both laugh in unison. "Better be using protection, hun."

"I am." He giggles.

"Good." I sigh.

I hear the lock of an iPhone, and Fred rumpled my brown-to-blond hair. It is now a mess. "I'll miss you bro..." He says.

"I'll miss you too, Freddie." I respond. "I'll try visiting as much as I can, okay?"

All he does is nod, and one tear escapes his left eye as I bring him into an embrace.

The clicking of heels makes its way down to the landing of the large spiral staircase, and my mother, Jo-Ann Brook, appears as Fredric and I pull away from our hug. My mother wears a baby blue dress from Macy's, a silver Alex and Ani charm bracelet, and white 6 inch high platform heels. She looked young, as she was only 37, and showed a huge smile at the both of us.

"Darren, honey..." my mother says, now at the bottom of the stairs. "I'll miss you..." I see her eyes glisten under her intense layers of makeup. I stride over to her and give her a huge hug. She is over a foot shorter than me. As we pull away, I see a tearstain on my Stussy sweatshirt of where my mother had been crying, and my eyes begin to water.

"Relax, mom," I say, recovering from my previous emotion of sadness. "I'll visit."

"I know, but..." she pauses, sobs escaping her mouth in quick gasps, "I'll miss you..."

She walks toward the couch and hugs a purple plush pillow with huge googley eyes to her chest. I had gotten it back when I was three and kept it ever since. I had drooled, cried, and threw the poor thing all across this house that will no longer be my home. "Your taking this with you, Darren." It was more of a demand rather then a question.

"Of course Mother." I take it from her grasp and turn toward the box by the steps that's labelled College. Moving one of my blankets aside, I put the plush pillow under it, and turn toward Fredric. "We're all riding together to the dorm. Mom, where are the keys?"

She wipes her eyelids and straightens up. "In the kitchen," my mom says, "I'll help you with the boxes."

"Me too," Fredric assures confidently.

We loaded the boxes into the trunk and put two large duffel bags in the back seat of my pink convertible (stereotypical, I know) and get into the car. Fredric hops into the back seat and takes out black nail polish from the back seat pocket. "Can I use this?"

I start the engine. I say, "Sure as long as you don't waste all of it you dirty, conniving, little skank."

"DARREN BROOK JR!" my mother yells, "LANGUAGE!"

"Sorry, mom," I chuckle as Fred unscrews the cap of the nail polish. Pulling out of the long driveway, I look towards the house that I will no longer be living in for over four years. I'd only be visiting during summer vacation and winter vacation. God knows what I'll be doing during spring break.

Part of me is happy that I am free. Free from high school, from past boyfriends (they shall not be named), from life at the Brooks' household.

But part of me is also sad to go. Independence is a paradox. Too much freedom can lead to bad decisions, yet too little freedom causes stress, which also causes wrinkles. And who the hell wants those?

As I turn onto the interstate, the last thing I think of before Fredric blasts Nicki Minaj is: Freedom is a blessing.

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