Deeper Than You Think

Chapter Four

 After her run with Oliver, Violet headed straight home. She didn't have anywhere else to go anyway. Besides, she had chores and homework she needed to do at some point and those would only get done if she went home to do them. The boys had asked for her phone number or at least her Snapchat, but she decided to tease them by saying that she needed a week of friendship before she would give that information out. They all agreed with her choice. She didn't want any freaks to have her number and send her creepy things.

When she had jokingly said that, Oliver and Arrow looked at Kross. Why wasn't she surprised that Kross sent weird crap via text or Snapchat?

"How was Vivi's first day at school?" Hazel asked. "Terrible without me, huh? High school is a bitch."
"Hazel language," their mother shouted as she walked into the living room. Violet shrugged.

"Actually, it wasn't that bad. I made a couple of new friends," Violet said.

"Do you have a boyfriend," Hazel teased. Violet rolled her eyes and ignored the comment.

"Oh?" Her mother said and sat down on the couch. "No drugs or alcohol right?"

"I don't think so," Violet said. As if drugs and alcohol were the only things that made people bad people. Violet knew people who loved drugs or alcohol but they were good people, but she also knew people who avoided them as if they were the plague and were horrible people. "Only thing to worry about with them is the bad amount of puns." She wasn't wrong, there were a lot of puns said when she was with the boys. But they weren't the kind of puns she'd happily share with her parents. She just wanted her mom to feel a little bit more at ease.

If she'd made friends with people who are punny, there would be nothing to worry about for these next two years.

"Oh, I have homework I need to get around to," Violet said as she stood up with every intention of going to her room to do said homework. While listening to some good music of course.

"Don't forget your chores," her mother called after her. "It's dish night for you." Violet sighed. She hated the dishes.

Violet plopped down on her bed and opened her laptop to the math textbook that her teacher had given her a link to. She liked not having to carry the textbook. She checked over her notes from class to see which problems she needed to do as homework. She sighed. Too much. She rolled over and grabbed her phone. Homework could wait.

Her followers online needed her more than she needed to do her homework, she decided even though that wasn't really true. Of course, she didn't have very many followers on the one site that she did have personality on, but that was fine with her. Tumblr gave her some freedom that nothing else allowed her to have. She'd even made some friends through that site, though not very many of them stayed with her for more than a week. Those who had had become her best friends and probably knew her better than anyone else on the planet because she didn't have to worry about them spreading rumors about her so she felt safer telling them her secrets. But she did really care about them. Most days, she wished that she could go visit them.

"Mom said you were doing homework in here, that doesn't look like homework," Violet looked up to see her older brother, Isaac standing in the doorway. She smiled and got up to hug him. She hadn't seen him since he'd left in May of the year before for whatever it was the military had wanted him to do. He didn't really like to talk about what they had him do, so she had no idea what he did.

"I missed you," Violet said as her eyes started to water. Isaac held her closer.

"I missed you too, Vivi," he whispered into her hair. He let her go and sat down in her chair. "I hear that today was your first day at your new school, how did that go?" Violet rolled her eyes.

"I haven't seen you in over a year and what you want to talk about is school. They really changed you, didn't they?" Isaac shrugged.

"I don't feel any different." He cracked one of his all too familiar smiles. "But really, how has life been treating my baby sister." Violet wrinkled her nose. She hated it when he called her his baby sister. Almost more than she hated the dishes. Almost.

"Fine, I suppose," she said, not wanting to spend the first time seeing her brother in the last year arguing with him. "Why didn't you tell anyone you were coming back?" He shrugged and smiled.

"Guess I forgot." Violet rolled her eyes.

"You were counting down the days from the second you found out you were coming home," she countered.

"I wanted to surprise you?" Violet glared at him. He sighed.

"There was something I wanted to do before I actually came home so I decided against telling anyone until it was done." He shrugged. "No big deal." Violet crossed her arms. If he was going to put off coming home until something was done, it was going to be a huge deal. She didn't buy into any of his crap. He sighed. "You really have a way of getting people to tell you things." He shook his head.

"Perks of being the baby of the family," Violet said.

"I suppose. Well, you can't tell anyone but," he looked around the room as if there would be someone else in her room. "I decided to propose to Erica and I wanted to have that out of the way first." Something about that hurt. He chose to see Erica before coming home to see his family. Erica, the girl everyone hates but supports the relationship while hoping that Isaac came to his senses. Violet didn't even want to pretend that it didn't hurt. She didn't have the energy.

"Congratulations," Violet muttered. "Glad you have your priorities straightened out." Violet opened up her laptop again and began work on her math homework. Maybe that would put her in a better mood than knowing her brother had picked to see his now-fiancee first rather than seeing his family.

"What's wrong?" Violet shook her head and motioned for him to leave. He stood up. "Nice you see you too," he mumbled, "Thought you'd be happy to be the first to know the news but I guess not." He left and shut the door behind him. Violet shook her head. This wasn't fair. Of all people why Erica? She sighed. She should have expected this.

It wasn't the military that was changing who her brother was, it was his girlfriend.