The boy with ocean eyes

Chapter four

"The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest"

Harvey drops me off at my house just before nine so I can see Joe before he goes bed. I skip up the stairs my body radiating with happiness. I'm about to go in my room to dump my school bag when I hear soft whimpers echo from my brothers room. My mood swiftly changes from over the moon with happiness to worrying sister mode. I stand outside my brothers bedroom door preparing my mind. As the door creeks open the lump under the duvet stiffens. I slide in under the duvet next to my sobbing brother. I wrap my arms around his small frame as he wraps his arms around me. I feel his tears soaking through my hoodie. "Hey jojo, what's up buddy?" He takes his head out of the neck of my hoodie and takes a deep breath. "I don't know, I-i" he doesn't finish his sentence before he's breaking down in sobs again. Once he's gathered himself together a bit more he starts again. "I'm s-scared Lilly" "what about Joe?" "Harvey" .Why on Earth is Harvey scaring my little brother? If he's been saying things to him I'm going to rip his balls off. "What about him Joe? What has he done to you?" He shakes his heads miserably, " he's done nothing to me. I'm scared he's going to do something to you, hurt you. You've been smiling lately, Lilly he makes you happy, but I don't want him to shatter that. You haven't been happy in a long time" . Sometimes I feel like Joe is supposed to be the older sibling but things got mixed up in the grand scheme of things. I feel the tears start to swell up in my eyes and overflow, trailing down my cheeks. "Oh Joe" I sigh thoughtfully. "Don't you worry about me. And I promise you that I'm being careful". Joe sniffles and wipes the moisture under his eyes, "I still don't trust him" he mutters protectively. I chuckle at his protectiveness over me. "Well he's someone who you'd get on with really well, he'd even play football with you" " really?" "Yup" Joe looks thoughtfully up at his ceiling which I notice he has a picture of me and him from last summer pinned up on. Weird but clever place for a picture I think to myself. Joe breaks the silence " he makes you really happy doesn't he? I can tell" I take a little while to answer but decide that I will tell Joe how I feel because even though he's my younger brother he's also a best friend. I feel Joe start to drift off into a sleep "He really does make me happy jo-jo" and I softly plant a kiss on his forehead. "Yuck" , Joe whispers and pretends to wipe my kiss off. I snuggle down further under the duvet, facing joes back. He slowing turns around and whispers gently "I'm really glad he does, you deserve all the happiness in the world lil" and that's how we fell asleep, two broken siblings looking out for eachother.

I wake up to voices downstairs and an empty bed. My eyes ache from the tears that were shed last night. I rub my eyes and open them to face a picture of me and joe. This is not my room. I look around to find myself in my brothers room and then the memories from last night replay in my mind. Everything went from happy to sad in a snap of a finger. I groggily throw the duvet back and get out of the bed. I look over to joes mirror ,where he spends hours perfectly his hair, to find a birds nest on top of my head. Literally a birds nest, I can actually hear the bird tweeting. Okay maybe my hairs not that bad but it's still going to hurt like mad to put a brush through it. I take off my clothes from yesterday and put on a fresh pair of black, high waisted jeans and baggy top tucked in. I decide to leave my hair down for once as the French plaits from yesterday actually made it look like I had naturally wavy hair. Oh how I wish. Poppy was blessed with that gene from mum where as I had the boring straight hair from my father. Cheers dad. Poppy always wanted straight hair and we would always wish that we could swap hair.

I make my way downstairs kind of feeling confident for once. I look at the girl walking past the mirror but I  don't stop as I don't want that little confidence to shatter. As I make my way downstairs I hear a deep voice and my brother and mothers laughter. That's weird, maybe uncle Jamie came down from London to stay for a bit. As I walk into the kitchen I find the back of a muscular guy and my brother next to him on the kitchen island with my mum leaning against the counter sipping on a mug of coffee. Ugh how I hate coffee. "Morning lil" my mum greets as she's noticed my presence. The boys heads snap in my direction . Joe smiles weekly at me then Harvey. Oh yeah, just Harvey small is in my house eating breakfast with Joe. Casual, I know right? "Morning miss Lillian" Harvey grins at me while I just stare ,confused. "hey? May I ask why your in my house eating breakfast with my brother?" Harvey's about to say something but I can see mum glaring like she's going to throw her coffee at me "Lilly Angela Connell! How dear you speak to not only a visitor but your own boyfriend like that!" My cheeks flare red and I pull my hands down my face "he's not my boyfriend mother" I mutter. Harvey finds my embarrassment amusing as so does Joe. "Apologise at once Lilly" my mum warns sending me a death glare from across the kitchen. If looks could kill I would be ten feet under by now. "Sorry" I mutter while walking towards the seat opposite to joe. "It's alright Lilly I know it's just your way of expressing your undying love for me" Harvey winks and clutches his heart which makes me want to leap across the counter and strangle him. He notices my irritation and kisses his hand then blows it my way. I pretend to catch it then squish it between my hands. I glare back menacingly as Harvey pretends to wipe away a tear. I return to this with my middle finger. He grins at this and gently chuckles, i roll my eyes. Ugh why are boys so annoying yet so attractive at the same time. "So I heard your into football then Harvey?" Joe asks while shoving a spoon full of cereal in his mouth. "Well I do play a bit but I'm more of a rugby fan, actually I play for the school team from time to time" Joe is about to respond but I but into their conversation "from time to time? Your the friken captain Harvey!" . He nervously chuckles and rubs the back of his neck but before he can answer my mums is screeching at me again "language Lilly Connell!" "I'm English mother and so are you along with the rest of us" she sighs into her mug. "sometimes I wonder how I've put up with you for so long" she mutters." Oi I heard that!" "You were meant too!" she shouts as she makes her way outside to hang the washing. "Well we'd better get going lil" Harvey snaps me back into reality as I've been sending death glares to my mum through the window. Oh don't worry, she returns them. "Yup" I grab my bag and phone and walk out the kitchen with Harvey trailing behind. "Bye jo-jo, bye mother" oh how my mum hates being called mother, she thinks it makes her sound old. I don't take a second glance back where as Harvey is hugging my mum "see you later Mrs Connell and thank you for the breakfast" he then walks over to Joe and fist bumps him and ruffles his hair "see you later Joe". Once Harvey has sweet talked my family we finally make it out the door. I'm about to start walking down the road when Harvey links his arm through mine and guides me towards his car. I eye up the car like its about to pounce at me. Harvey leans over and gently squeezes my hand "it'll be okay Lilly, I'm here" . That there is two words that I've needed on my darkest days where even abbie can't pull me out of the darkness. Sometimes I don't need anyone to say anything but as simple as knowing that their by my side can help to lift me up a lot. Those two words got me in the car and made it through the drive to school. I thank Harvey and he makes his way over to his so called 'friends' while I find Abbie. When I text she doesn't reply so I walk the corridors before tutor by myself. That's how it's always been just me, myself and I. Sometimes I lie to myself and say that's the way I like it but really I'd love to have a circle of friends hovering around me ready to pick me up on a bad day or to send random texts to keep me going to power through the day. Harvey over the couple past days has been that little bit of sun powering on through the storm to create sunshine for me. I'm too caught up in my thoughts that I bump into a couple eating each others faces off. Ugh how I hate PDA. I'm about to mutter a sorry and carry on walking towards my tutor room but the long wavy blonde hair of this girl seems familiar. the couples heads turn around to seek who disturbed their little snog fest, Abbie. Here we go again. But not just any boy, oh no, this is Abbie's crush since she started this school, Kyle Roberts. "Hey abs", Kyle looks between the two of us then looks me up and down disgustedly and turns back to Abbie. She smiles sweetly at Kyle and pecks his lips and doesn't even bother to look at her best friend "sorry, you don't seem familiar but as you can see I'm a little busy so if you could leave us to it that would be much appreciated" then resumes back to Kyle. I just stand there astonished. How dare she. No Lilly she's not being cruel she must have not recognised you or something and just wanted to resume back to Kyle as after all she has been eyeing him up for four years. Yeah that's what it is. I don't realise I'm still stood in front of them having this little argument with myself when Kyle clicks his fingers in front of my face "oi. Weirdo. Leave. Now" . Abbie looks across the hallway at the blank wall like its the most interesting thing ever to avoid eye contact with me. I put my head down to avoid any further humiliation and walk on towards tutor. Abbie doesn't turn up. She doesn't turn up for any of our lessons together. It gets to lunch and I'm stuck for what to do, I have no one. I look around the canteen but it's full and me being short can't see over the sea of people and gets shoved out the way. I decide to get out when kirk mason starts shoving another of the schools hottys, Luke parsons, against the wall spitting words into his face. I take the familiar route down to the bottom of the school, in through the rotting oak door and up the winding dusty stairs. I sit on the ledge where a window pane was once and look down, across the school and at tiny ant people that are scattered about. The ants run across the football pitch. They stand in lots of huddles talking. They sit at tables. They eat food. And one sits up on old bell tower looking off the edge , alone. All the other ants are with other ants but not this one. This ant is different to the others. This ant hides her sadness behind a fake smile. She hides her loneliness through kindness. She hides her fear with a brave face. However she hides her self hatred with cuts on her wrist. I get my book out of my bag and plug in my earphones. Ed Sheeran 'happier' comes on. I'm at peace as I leave my world of loneliness and indulge in someone else's world.