Hypnotized

Chapter 29

LEVI POV

"What's wrong? You can tell me?" Xiu asks again, and I sigh.

We've now left the restaurant, and I'm walking her back to her dorm because I refused to let her walk there by herself. Especially since Priscilla went missing; I didn't want to take any chances. The sky has darkened slightly, because we spent so much time in the restaurant and we weren't really paying attention to how quickly time passed.

"It's just...family stuff. I don't want to bother you."

"Levi. Come on, don't be stubborn with me. You aren't stubborn when it comes to literally everything else." She replies.

I find myself trying to decide if I should burden her with my current situation. There's comfort whenever I'm around her, so the fact that I'm even feeling any sort of hesitation to talk to her about anything is pointless. I know that she'll keep whatever I say between us. Besides, it'll feel good to finally get something off my chest instead of bottling it all inside.

My parents tell me that I have an issue of not talking to people when something's wrong, and just keeping it to myself. For so many years, I've been used to handling my issues on my own because nobody cared enough to listen; and for the simple fact that all I had was myself. But now that I'm in a better spot in my life and put trust into Xiu, I know that telling her won't be a bad thing.

"My little brother Liam, he's not making the best choices right now. He plays basketball, and has received an almost full ride from multiple universities. He wants to sacrifice all of that just to stay home, and be with his friends who are complete lowlives." I explain, and she nods as she listens to me.

"How are his friends lowlives?" Xiu asks.

Lowlives isn't even strong enough to describe them.

"Well, they've been in multiple gang related fights, and one of which resulted in a kid getting stabbed in the leg with a pocketknife. They steal from convenience stores, they've stolen from homeless people. They're not going anywhere in life. So the fact that my brother is about to throw away everything that he's earned just to stay in their company makes me sick to my stomach."

Xiu stays silent for a moment, processing everything that I just told her. By the look on her face, she's shocked. Probably because I'm opening up about my personal life to her, and the fact that there's much more to the surface. To her, it always looks like I'm so nonchalant and like I don't have any stress or worries going on in my life. Now that we're getting closer, I'm acknowledging the fact that it's not a bad thing to open up to her.

It's astounding how just one person can make you evaluate yourself, whether it be your good qualities or your bad ones. Xiu's breaking me out of some of the bad, and she doesn't even realize it.

"Have you talked to your brother about this? You should sit down with him, and just tell him how you feel." Xiu suggests, and I sigh.

I wish I could do that, but I've already talked to him on multiple occasions about how I feel. Our parents feel the same way. We all know that Liam is stubborn, and once he's set on something that there's nothing else we can do. Of course we aren't giving up and we keep persisting, but we already know how this is going to end.

"My brother is stubborn. Believe me, we've all tried talking to him. Not just about how his friends aren't good for him, but that he shouldn't risk college for them. They're just heading down the wrong path in life, and I don't want my brother to be apart of that. He should learn from me, because I've seen enough of it myself." I ramble.

I mentally smack myself as I finish my statement. Sometimes I have a habit of saying too much, and I'm usually pretty good about controlling what comes out of my mouth in certain situations. I don't talk too much about my upbringing. It wasn't the easiest of times, and now that I'm in a much better state, there's no need to constantly bring up the past.