Honey and spice

𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 4

"Are you fucking kidding me Brooke?! I've never had a problem with keeping you safe my entire life but now that you're 17, you turn into THAT girl?" My brother, Jaden, whisper yells.

When Arel dropped me off I thought I was safe. But as I grabbed the spare key from under the flowerpot and quietly opened the door, my brothers angry face met my own. He demanded to know where I was so I told him everything...well except the part about nearly getting raped. He doesn't need to know that part.

Now here he is trying to tell me off, like some kind of third parent.

"Ok first of all it's not your responsibility to take care of me," I begin. "Next, it was just one night! For once in my life I was having fun! You've been to plenty of parties, this was my first one. How is it fair that you get all the fun while I have to get perfect grades and be mum and dad's perfect little daughter?"

It's true, I was always expected to be perfect in every way while Jaden could do basically whatever he wanted.

"I'm older Brooke! And I can defend myself. You can't. You didn't even text me or mum! You're lucky they're still asleep or they'd have called the police, believing you've been killed or something crazy," he argues, towering over me in his 6'5 power stance.

It's true, dad especially would freak. My parents have always been overprotective despite not having a reason to worry. And they overreact so much over tiny things that most people wouldn't bat an eye at. And Jaden has a point about the self-defence thing...though I wouldn't actually tell him that.

"I can defend myself perfectly fine thank you very much," I reply.

"Oh please, you haven't had to fight for anything in your life ever."

Jerk.

"First of all, I don't even have the words to explain how untrue that is. Secondly, I couldn't text you because I lost my phone," I admit.

"Brooks...Mum and dad will be so pissed!"

"I know. Callie will bring the phone over if she finds it while she's cleaning. But I already looked everywhere it could have been. Someone probably took it." I mumble the last part. I was hoping it wasn't true. I have an easy passcode so If someone were to try and hack it they'd probably be able to.

"If someone took it, you realise that mum and dad will find out, right?" He says.

Well duh, was what I wanted to say. But I knew that if I did then things would escalate.

"I know. What do I tell them?" I ask.

"I don't know. The truth I guess."

Yeah, cause that will go down just great. The last phone I had, I dropped it on the sidewalk and someone had accidentally kicked it onto the road. To make things even worse a car was reversing at that very moment and ran over it right in front of me. Mum and dad were so pissed when they heard what happened that they grounded me for two months. Not that I even go out anyway but it also meant no Netflix, something that I can't live without for long. So I guess you can understand the hesitation about telling my parents the truth.

But before I can point out that incident to Jaden, I hear a door closing upstairs.

"Crap they're awake!" I whisper yell at Jaden.

"Go into the kitchen and start on breakfast, I'll distract them!" Jaden says and slides along the wooden floorboards in his socks.

I'm usually the one that makes breakfast on Saturday morning and it's too late now to sneak back into my room without them seeing me. I quickly put on an apron, hoping that they won't notice I'm wearing the same clothes from last night and I heat up the pan for bacon and eggs. A favourite in the Morris household.