The boyfriend my friends paid for - REVISED

Chapter 21 - The Comfort Of A Friend

Chapter 21 – The Comfort Of A Friend

When Brooklyn finally arrived home the first thing she wanted to do was to tell her mum that she had finally been invited to prom, she wouldn’t however be telling her about everything else that had happened that afternoon, that was not something her mum needed to know right now but when she walked down the drive she noticed Dallas’ car in the drive next to her mum’s. She began to worry because Dallas loved university and he would never miss a day for anything, Brooklyn began to worry and think through everything that would cause him to come home so suddenly; had he been kicked out? Was it too hard for him? Did he have to come back because of something here? Was it mum? What had happened to mum?

“Mum, Mum, MUM!” Brooklyn opened the door in a floury and began running through the house while shouting and searching for her mum.

“We’re in here darling!” her mum called out as Brooklyn finally found them sitting around the dining room table but there were two more people there than Brooklyn expected. She moved her eyes around the table while standing in the doorway she firstly noticed her brother sat on the other side of the table but he didn’t look himself, then Brook looked to the left of her brother and saw a sobbing head of hair, the head looked up and she noticed the beautifully flawless face of Kayla but she was crying, Brooklyn soon noticed her mum was also crying and there was another person sitting at the table, Brooklyn didn’t know who she was but there was something familiar about her. “Brooklyn, you might want to sit down, we have something to tell you.” Her mum sounded solemn but the last thing Brook wanted to do was stay in a room with Kayla so she thought she’d stay standing. “Fine if you wish dear, but I don’t know how you’ll take this. This is Sally, she’s Riders mother.” The sobbing woman weakly smiled at Brooklyn and then turned to face away from her. “Dallas is home because while you were at school Rider was in a car accident, it wasn’t his fault, he was hit by a drunk driver but sadly he didn’t survive-” her mum didn’t even finish what she was saying because Brooklyn had fallen to the floor, she was crying and screaming she could feel her brother’s arm come around her but somehow it didn’t seem to comfort her the way it usually did. Everyone knew that Brook was close to Rider, as she was with all of Dallas’ friends but no one knew just how close and this wasn’t the time or the place to tell them. Brooklyn still didn’t want to be in the same room as Kayla and after what she did to him she was surprised Dallas was doing so well, so she got to her feet, brushed the tears out of her eyes and walked to her room.

Before she reached the bottom of the stairs she heard her mum begin talking again. “I knew she’d take it badly I better go and see her.” Brook could hear the scraping of a chair but before she heard footsteps she heard another voice.

“She’s grieving you have to give her space.” It was Kayla’s voice and as much as Brooklyn hated her she heard the chair scrap again and her mum never came after her. She got to her room slammed to door behind her and fell onto her bed crying.

~*~

The next morning Dylan walked to pick Brooklyn up for school, although her house wasn’t on his way to school she’d text him last night once she’d calmed down and he knew that she would need him. He meet her at the bottom of her drive and before Dylan could even say hello Brook burst into tears and flung her head onto his shoulder.

“Why don’t you stay at home today Brook, I'm sure your mum would understand?” Dylan curled his arm around her and lifted her chin so she was looking straight at him even if she did try and avoid his gaze.

“She said I could but I'd rather be with you and have something to take my mind off of things.” Dylan let Brook’s head drop back onto his shoulder and nodded in agreement. They soon began to walk to school and after Brooklyn had pulled herself together talk soon turned to what people would say when they showed up to school hand in hand.

“Don’t worry about him Brook, if he says anything then I'll punch him.” Dylan said out of the blue.

“What? Who’s ‘he’?” Brooklyn asked, having a small feeling about who Dylan was talking about but not wanting to say it was.

“Samson, you just know he’s going to say something and I don’t want you going through that, not today especially.” Dylan sounded like he owned Brooklyn and if it was any other day then she probably would have said something but she just didn’t have the energy.

“Oh yeah of course he will, but I don’t really care anymore because I've got you and he’s got no one.” Brooklyn held onto Dylan’s hand like it was a life line as they walked into school. At first nobody noticed them but when they reached their group of friends Rachel noticed something out of the ordinary.

“Are you two aware that you’re currently holding hands?” Rachel asked them both in confusion and in doing so drawing the attention of everyone else in their group towards them.

“Well Rach they’ve been like that since I picked her up this morning so I think we would have stopped if it was an accident.” Dylan replied with a sly comment that made Brooklyn chuckle, until she remembered that Rider was dead and that she had to g to his funeral in 5 days, a tear rolled down her cheek and Laura noticed it before anyone else.

“Brook, it wasn’t that funny, you don’t need to cry about it.” Laura was never good at dealing with crying people and so she just used to try and make them laugh but this time it wasn’t going to stop Brooklyn.

“It’s not because of that Laura,” Dylan piped up while cuddling Brooklyn into his chest. “She got some bad news last night.”

“Aw found out that you’re not as clever as you thought” Danni, the school bitch, walked past and gave a smug little grin at Brook and it was all she could do to hold Dylan back and stop him swinging a punch at her.

“Leave it Dylan,” Brooklyn sobbed as Danni walked away. “I need you right now and getting yourself put in isolation is not gonna help me.” Brook began to sob even more and Dylan saw that she needs to get away from the interfering eyes on the playground. He gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead and began to lead her towards the school building, being followed closely behind by all of Brook’s friends.