The "Rules" (a fosters / brallie fanfiction)

Chapter Seven

Mariana's pov

I walk up to me and Callie-, well, I guess just my room now. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually really going to miss sharing it. I look over at Callie's bed, with my eyes filling up with tears.

"Mariana, Brandon, Jesus, can you come down here?" I hear mom call. I sigh, and head down the stairs. When I get downstairs, Brandon is already down here. We wait several moments. "What is Jesus doing?" Lena asks.

"Jesus, dude, get down here!" Stef yells. After several moments, Jesus comes down.

"Finally, what took you so long?" I ask

"Well sorry. Jude is still shooken up, so I was talking to him." Jesus replied.

"Actually, Jude is what we want to talk to you about." Lena said, with a hint of sadness in her voice. We all get a concerned look on our faces.

"Look, something is going on with him that not even Callie knows has been happening. He has given us permission to talk to you guys about it. Obviously he has had an extremely tough life. And now Callie has run away, so he is in an even deeper depression than he was in before," Stef started but she paused, tears building up in her eyes. Depression?!? Wow, I had kind of wondered why he always seemed down. Stef continued. "Unfortunately, in addition to all of those things, Jude has another factor in his life that severely damages his self esteem. There's no easy way of saying this, but Jude has been-." Stef starts crying. Dang. I've only seen her cry a couple of times. It must be bad. Lena puts her arm around Stef.

"Do want me to say it?" Lena asks. Stef nods her head. "Kids, Jude gets... He gets bullied by his class mates." Lena says sadly. I dropped my jaw. Everyone looks shocked, and sad. "They say absolutely awful things to him. They call him loser, gay, faggot, freak, and retard. But the worst thing, by far, is they tell him he has no family, no love. They say he's worthless, and he should just kill himself because he has no life ahead of him. They also say that we only took him in for the money, and we would dump him on the streets the first chance we get." Lena concludes. She is now crying, rather hard.

I'm absolutely shocked. Wow. Maybe if I had known, I would have been a bit more compassionate, and shown more love towards him. My eyes fill with tears. I immediately look at Jesus, because him and Jude have an extremely close bond. There is a single tear rolling down his cheek, and his fists are clenched.

"Why would kids say all these heartless things to Jude?"

"There's no way to know. People can just be cruel. But I'd imagine just because he is the new kid, small, scrawny, and kind. People take that stuff to there advantage, and uses it against them. It's awful, but that's just the way society works."

"How long have you guys known?" Jesus asks.

"He just told us last night. But, right now, he extreme support from everyone, especially you guys. Why especially you guys you may think? Well, he really needs support from people closer to his age, not his mom who are practically required to say that stuff. But to me, the worst part is he actually started to believe the stuff about us. How we were going to get rid if him as soon as possible, and that we really don't care about him. We need to give him as much love as possible, to prove those bullies are wrong! You guys care about him, don't you?" We all nod our heads. "Alright, well, please just step up to the plate, and look after him."

Me, Jesus, and Brandon go into the other room to talk about the shocking information we just received. Jesus looked like he was going to burst, either in anger or tears. "You okay Jesus?" I ask.

"No I'm not okay! I just found out my little brother gets pushed around and messed with like a punching bag! And I did nothing about it! I didn't pay close enough attention to him to even have that thought!! I always wondered why he wanted to walk next to me in the hallway. Every time he asked, I came up with some lame ass excuse. And or what? So I won't be embarrassed having my little brother walking by me? While he's getting shoved against lockers and get emotional pain?" Jesus said with tears down his face.

"Dude, this is not your fault. You paid WAYY more attention, and gave way more love to Jude than me and Mariana have combined, which I now feel terrible about. But this is not your fault, it is the jerk offs who do this to hims fault!" I nod my head in agreement.

Jesus sighs. "I know. I just wish I had done something more. I mean, he's my little brother. But I'm going to look out for him. I won't ever let anything happen to him ever again!" Jesus says.

"Me too." I say in agreement. Brandon nods his head. We all part and go up to our rooms.