That's Life, Bud

decisions to be made

Surprised? Good.

Yes, I know, you are probably thinking, "Wait, you have an older brother?!" Yes, I do. His name is Jasper. He would be a junior in college, but he dropped out. Like me, he hates our parents, so he was rebellious. When he turned 18, he changed his name from Rufus to Jasper. He has a neck tattoo and a tattoo with my name on his wrist, owns a quite successful tattoo parlor, has white-dyed hair, and always protected me and drove me to McDonald's and all that. So, basically he was the best older brother anyone could have. Jasper was always loud, outgoing, funny, and all in all, a people person. And I have never been happier in my life to see him.

"Jasper!" I exclaimed and threw my arms around him. He hugged me back immediately.

"Excited to see me?" he asked sarcastically. I could practically hear his smile. Then I pulled away from him and slapped his arm.

"You haven't visited me in three years!" I guilted him. He looked down.

"Things have been a little busy at the parlor," he said quietly. "And plane tickets are pretty expensive."

I groaned and hugged him again. "What are you doing here?" I asked an pulled away from him and led him into the living room to talk to him. Oh frick, Sam, I thought. When we passed through the kitchen, he wasn't there, so he was probably hiding up in my room.

I grabbed my phone off the kitchen counter and checked what time it was, but there was also a text from Sam:

Saw your brother so i let myself out ps bring me some pizza when you can

Oh thank God. I mentally sighed and turned my phone off. Jasper was the first person I told about the whole 'Sam/Kayla' thing, and when he heard, he threatened to beat up Sam. Jasper doesn't have a great goodbye memory of Sam before he left the house.

We got to the living room and sat down on two different couches. Jasper looked around at the lonely house and frowned.

"Where's Mom and Dad?" he asked and faced me. I sighed.

"Mom is on some retreat that is supposed to make her skinnier or some crap and Dad is on a business trip," I said and looked down at my hands, folded in my lap. I could feel the sudden anger practically radiating off of Jasper. When I said he hates our parents, I mean he hates our parents.

"How long are they going to be gone?" he asked through gritted teeth.

"Mom two weeks and Dad a month," I said and knitted my eyebrows.

"And how long have they been gone now?"

"Three days."

"And have they called to check in on you?"

"Not once," I answered. Tears started prickling at my eyes. Jasper laughed sarcastically and bitterly. Then he walked over to me, sat down next to me, and pulled me into a hug. I hugged him right back. A tear fell down my cheek but I quickly wiped it away. There are better things to cry about, I scolded myself.

Jasper let go of me after awhile and looked at me with a serious look. "Carter, my tattoo parlors are doing really well. I have a chain of locations all throughout New York. And guess what? MTV offered me a reality TV show." I gasped and he smiled a little. "And I bought an apartment in upstate New York City. I'm rich, Carter, and I want you to move to New York City and live with me." I looked at him with wide eyes. He had a hopeful gleam in his eyes and a sweet smile on his face. "You would be able to chose whether or not you want to be on the TV show, but my bank account is definitely big enough for you and me."

I was about to say yes. I was so ready to get away from everyone, from everything, that I would have said yes in an instant if it wasn't for Emma, Jet, Harper, Patrick, and Michael. Sure, I loved my group, but those people have been with me since the beginning. I also feel as if Sam is a part of the reason I didn't say yes right away, too. He suddenly swung into my life again and there are feelings about him that I have that I am unable to explain. So instead of answering, I stared at Jasper with blank eyes.

"Listen, I know that you won't be able to make the decision right away, so I am going to stay with you a while until Mom or Dad gets back, ok?" he asked.

I nodded and smiled. "Ok." He smiled and stood up.

"I'm gonna get my suitcase out of the car," he said casually and started walking to the door. I checked my phone for the time again, realizing that I wasn't paying attention the first time I did. 12:13 pm it read.

I heard the front door open and a male voice say, "Hello, one half cheese, half pepperoni pizza?"

I shot up off of the couch and grabbed a twenty off of the kitchen counter and made my way over to the door. Jasper was staring blankly at the highschool delivery boy and the boy was holding out the pizza for him to take. I shuffled in front of Jasper and took the pizza and handed the kid the twenty.

"You can keep the change as a tip," I told him and smiled.

"Thanks! Have a nice day!" he said and started back to his delivery car.

"You too!" I called and closed the door.

"God bless you for ordering pizza right on time. I had no food on the fight because I didn't want my motion sickness to make me spill it back out," Jasper said once the door was closed. He then took the box out of my hands and brought it into the kitchen, throwing it down on the counter and opening it, immediately grabbing a piece.

"That sucks," I replied and grabbed a piece of pepperoni pizza for myself. He shrugged and scarfed his pizza down and went to grab another piece. I slapped his hand away.

"Slow down, you're going to get sick," I told him and took another bite of my pizza.

He threw his head back. "But I'm sooooooooo hungrrrryyyyy," he groaned. I laughed.

"Would you rather be sick or hungry?" I asked him in my 'wise philosopher' voice.

Jasper narrowed his eyes and looked at me. "Toche," he said and got another piece.