hide and seek - boyxboy

3

Cole

"Hi Amy." I mumble, falling next to her on the sofa.

Amy is my 14 year old sister. As cringey as it may seem - she's kinda like my best friend.

I said it aloud, and now I'm lame.

Great.

"Hey Cole." She yawns, muting the TV and looking my way. "I've got news."

I raise an eyebrow, signalling her to carry on.

"This kid asked me out last week." She laughs. "I was like what the fuck-- sorry, hell. Like why does he fancy me?" She bursts into laughs. "But yeah I said yeah and I have a proper fit boyfriend now."

"Boyfriend? What's his name?" I question, scooting closer to Amy on the sofa.

"Yeah. Erm Joshua. He's so hot. Not that you could recognise a hot guy, but."

I could recognise a 'hot' boy. The way that girls can recognise a pretty girl. The only thing is that when I do it, it's suddenly weird and gay.

"Yeah. Do you like him?"

She shrugs, falling back. "Yep. Liked him for ages."

"You never told me."

"You're my brother, not my sister." She rolls her eyes.

"You don't have a sister. I'm the next best thing." I say.

Before she says anything, the doorbell rings. I run towards the door before Amy could, seeing that it seemed important to her as she legitimately bolted towards the door.

She tries to open the door but I hold her head back with the palm of my hand.

I open it first, seeing a boy, same height as me - maybe shorter. He had brown hair and blue eyes. Fit.

"Hiya, I'm Cole." I lean against the door frame and smile. "Who are you?"

"Joshua." He mumbles nervously. "Is Amy here?"

"Amy? Who's Amy?"

"Cole! Stop!" Amy runs underneath the my arm as it still leans against the door frame.

She hugs her 'boyfriend' and sticks her tongue at me as to say that she had 'won'. - she hadn't. "Joshua, Cole. Cole Joshua. This is my brother, this is my boyfriend." She points between the two of us.

"I'm the brother." I smile.

"I'm the boyfriend." He mimics.

There's an awkward silence for a while, before Amy breaks it, telling me that she's taking Joshua to her room. Which is when I shouted to keep the door open.

Now is maybe the time that I explain my life at home. I live alone with Amy. I'm old enough to be her guardian. Also, my dad likes an hour away which is considered safe. When our mum was sent to prison i kind of refused to live with our dad - and trust me, if you knew how incapable my dad is at life, you would refuse too. We do love him though. But if we went to go live with him, we probably wouldn't get an education, or food for that matter. Plus, if we lived with him, i wouldn't have been able to get the beautiful black motorbike that always sits outside waiting for me to take it for a spin.

Hours later, I realise something that I should've realised ages ago. It's a Friday. It's 5:00pm. We have to go visit our mum. Yay.

I jump up from my bed, jogging across the corridor, towards Amy's room. I barge in without knocking, thanking the Lord when I see the appropriate position get and Joshua are in as they are watching a film.

She looks up and smiles at me. "Yeah?"

"We have to go..." I cough "see mum."

A frown appears on her face, mirroring my expression. "I know you don't want to, but we haven't gone in almost 2 weeks. I feel bad. Plus, summer starts next week and we both have parties so we can't go see her then so that's another two weeks and--" I begin to ramble.

"-- yeah, okay Cole." She mumbles. "I'll walk you out Joshua." She forces a little grin on her face as she leads her boyfriend down the stairs.

I jog back to my bedroom, grabbing the extra helmet for Amy. I run down the stairs to see Joshua leaving and Amy leaning against the door, arms folded, water in the eyes. I hated seeing Amy cry. I guess you could say that it was one of the worst things that I could see. That I've ever seen.

"Hey, hey." I jump across a few steps, just to get to my sister quicker. "What's wrong?"

"I don't want to go." She sobs, quickly hiding her face in my chest. "It's scary." She sobs harder.

"It's mum, Amy. Our mum."

"No! She's not my mum. Not after what she did." She sniffs, lifting her head up from my chest. "I'll go, but I won't forgive and forget, I'll make sure she knows that."

I sigh, taking this as a loss on my behalf.

Amy storms out the house, marching towards my bike. I huff as I roll my eyes and lock the front door. I follow up behind her, and sit at the front.

I start to drive, now thinking that this is a bad idea. You never know how my mums going to react to anything. She might be happy, she might be angry. She might hug us, she might hit us. We never know. Until we get there, that is.

Speaking of, "We're here."

I hear a small groan before a small weight is lifted off my bike. I get off afterwards, shoving both of our helmets under the seat.

It was 5:30, now. Still bright outside. Bright enough for people to think it was earlier. But not bright enough to life our spirits. By now, I had lost Amy. The last i saw of her was the back of her head, darting through the doors of the police station.

I jog up, following her footsteps to see her already requesting to see our Mum. I look around the station - kids, mums, dads all reconciling.

"I'll call her out for you. Myra Matthews?" The lady officer asked us once more before leaving. Only for a few seconds. She's back after that. With our mum. Hands in chains. Hair all messed. Face set to be miserable.

"Hey, guys." She presses her lips into a tight smile.

The officer looks between us all. "I'll show you where to sit." She leads us to a table, Amy and I sitting on one side and Mum on the other. Awkward was an understatement.

"Holidays are next week." ; mums failed attempt at small talk.

"Yeah, we know." ; my attempt at replying.

"How is everything?"

Explaining all the details of our small conversation would be boring. For me and you. There's no need if I'm honest.

Although one thing may be important.

Mum looks up behind us. Before I can turn to meet what her eyes were looking at, a large hand places itself on my shoulder and another on Amy's.

"Cole, Amy... This is my boyfriend Greg."

"Boyfriend!?" Amy and I exclaim- loudly.

She's been here a month. She has a bloody boyfriend.

"Is that so hard to believe?"

I run my eyes down my mum. Her eyes bloodshot. Her skin dry and dead. Her lips people pink and small.

"Surprisingly, yes." I roll my eyes. "But we'll go now. Bye mum."

I sigh and stand up with Amy.

Before leaving the room, I look at my mum once more. She's changed. Changed a lot.

"Bye kids." She doesn't seem to realise how much she's hurt us.

"Bye mum."