Amy

The memories came flooding back to me approximately twenty seconds after I opened my eyes the morning after. We'd kissed; I'd kissed Verity. And it was something I'd entirely wanted. I would say I was surprised but in reality the signs of my developing crush were all there - wanting to be close all the time, appreciating her loveliness, and, well, thinking about how nice she always smells a little too often. It was safe to say the alcohol had definitely sped up my realisation but I couldn't deny the feelings for her were there. I liked her - cared about her - as more than a friend.

I'd had crushes in the past but nothing that turned into anything real. I nearly ended up in a relationship a year ago with a guy in my old school - Charlie - but he turned out to be a bit of a dick. I'd never had a crush on a girl, but my crush on Verity didn't feel shocking to me... it just felt natural; it felt warm. I'd kissed her and she'd kissed me back. She liked me back. It made me want to jump out of bed and run around the house. She wanted me.

"Hey," I rolled over to face her side of the bed. For obvious reasons, Verity had opted to stay over at mine instead of going home pissed.

"Oh, hi." I was used to her sounding nervous but that didn't mean I liked it.

"How are you feeling?"

"Err... well my throat currently feels like the Sahara Desert but yeah, overall I'm okay." She laughed and I smiled back. I could feel her eyes on my face.

"That's normal don't worry. We can go down, get some water and..." I didn't know how to phrase it and the words got caught up in my throat. It took me a few moments "and talk about last night?"

"last night?" I felt her perk up, scared. "I...err... I mean..."

"I mean we don't have to," I added hurredly, sensing the sudden tension "I just thought..."

"I don't..." I felt her leave the bed with a big jolt and then heard the shifting of fabric... her getting changed. "I really think I should go home, I just ... have a headache and my mother will be expecting me back." She added a quick 'sorry' before leaving, practically running down the stairs and out of the house.

Fuck. I said the word aloud, my head in my hands. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

I had gotten her drunk and kissed her. It was a stupid selfish drunk kiss; it was absolutely nothing. It had pushed me right into the deep end of feelings but to her it was a mistake. A mistake that could have possibly cost our friendship. I shook my head roughly, wanting to expel the thoughts out of my brain. The whole thing made me want to just stay in my room and never leave again. I'd gotten it so wrong, and now there was nothing I could do to fix it.

"Amy?"

"Jesus Dylan, haven't you heard of knocking?" I wiped my eyes quickly and tried to paste the most convincing smile I could muster on my face.

"Sorry." There were a few seconds of silence before he spoke again "Are you okay?"

"Yeah I'm fine, why?" I furrowed my eyebrows.

"Just bored." I could sense the shrug in his voice "thought maybe we could watch something?"

"Yeah sure." Admittedly, with spending so much time at school and with Verity, I'd been neglecting my brother. He'd been doing a lot with his friend group as well, but I still felt guilty about it.

We descended the stairs together, taking seats on the couch. Dylan put on some documentary about an octopus and it started feeling more and more like old times when we used to do this sort of thing almost bi-weekly. We used to have pacts on certain series where we couldn't cheat and watch ahead of the other person. Had I become a bad person? The feeling overwhelmed me suddenly and the knots in my stomach grew. Was I just ruining all my relationships with people who cared about me? Was I letting them all down? My eyes pin-pricked and then all of a sudden I could feel the hot tears streaming down my face.

"Woahh, Amy what's wrong?" The obvious concern in his voice just made me cry harder. "Heyy, it's okay." He wrapped his arms around me, like he always did when I was upset. I just felt really attention seeking.

"I'm sorry, I just..." I couldn't find the words through the sobs. Everything about this made me feel embarrassed; my problems were embarrassing to me. I didn't know how to tell him about any of this stuff, especially the stuff concerning Verity. Not that I thought he'd be homophobic or anything, more that it just felt too personal, too new, too raw right now. "I just feel like I'm fucking everything up."

"Heyy, no you're not fucking anything up." He stroked my back with his hand gently. "Why would you think you are?"

"I don't know, I just feel like I'm being a bad person to everyone right now. Like, with you; I've just ignored you for ages!"

"No! You haven't been ignoring me, we've just both been busy lately, that's all. You've been spending time with your friends and I've been with mine. And anyway we're spending time together now aren't we?" I nodded slowly, my breathing still a bit off. "We can sort out a schedule like we used to do, yeah?"

"Yeah." I said quietly, finding some relief in the fact that he wasn't made at me for anything.

"Is this related to the thing I heard about in school? With that girl... Henrietta?" My head snapped up at him in confusion. How did he know about that? "I'm sorry, we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, it's just... word travels fast in that school."

"No, it's fine." I rubbed my face with my hands, "It's just... I don't know, it's just so embarrassing."

"Why? It's embarrassing for the other girl, sure - she made herself out to be a right dickhead - but none of it was your fault. You were the victim in that situation."

"Exactly! I was the victim and it just all makes me seem so helpless! I did O&M for years - I know how to navigate down a hill, I have Google maps on my phone - but all I did was have a panic attack and call for help. Why did I do that? Why did I just get so upset?" The frustration was hard to miss in my voice as I felt it rising up in my body. Why was I so pathetic? "And because of Henrietta, I have a very limited number of friends and I've gone and ruined one of them because I had feelings for them and they don't feel the same, like at all. And on top of that, I haven't told Dad any of this even though I promised him I'd be open about stuff going on in my life."

"Woahh, hey it's okay, it's okay." He rubbed my back again, pulling me in tighter. We stayed like that for a few minutes, Dylan probably processing everything I'd just dumped on him. "Do you think this is potentially all linked to Mum? You know what the therapist said about these kinds of feelings coming up once in a while."

When our mum left, Dad thought it was a good idea for the three of us to go for family counselling sessions now and again to make sure everything was okay. I'm reality, I think he did it for my sake the most of all - Dylan had pretty much dealt with it fairly healthily - but the therapist agreed that I was dealing with it very unhealthily because I blamed myself over it. I mean, it wasn't hard to see why considering Mum did just pack up because I was too hard to deal with - it wasn't exactly rocket science to see that - but the therapist just said it was because I was struggling with a lot of things at once and concluded that I was most likely going to suffer from abandonment and self-esteem issues for a long time. It just felt like counselling terminology to tell me I had 'mommy issues'.

"I don't really see how they're linked at all." I hated the idea of being psycho-analysed.

"I mean you're allowed to disagree but definitely with the Henrietta thing - don't you think the reason why you got so upset was because it subconsciously reminded you of like, the supermarket stuff?" Although I hated to admit it, he did make a point.

When my mum was here, it was like she was weirdly in denial about the fact that I was visually impaired, especially when my sight got worse and worse. She would do things like take me to the supermarket and not guide my anywhere, so I'd get super lost and disorientated. On a few of those occasions she claimed she 'forgot' she'd taken me with her and it wasn't until my dad saw I wasn't with her at home that she'd realise. For me, as a kid, it was absolutely terrifying and my parents would come back to find me having anxiety attacks next to the shop assistant trying to console me. Some part of me wondered if leaving me at the supermarket was deliberately - as if in her head it meant I'd either disappear or magically come back with 20/20 vision.

I refused for a long time to ever set foot in a supermarket again, even with my dad or Dylan. I got over it and became a lot more confident thanks to O&M but Dylan could still be right; a subconscious part of me could have been triggered by encountering a similar situation with Henrietta. That didn't mean it didn't still feel like a failure though.

"I don't know, maybe you're right." I felt Dylan tuck a stand of my hair behind my ear before wiping away some of the tears from my face. "I still don't really know what to do about it all though."

"Ah it's not too bad - you haven't done anything wrong after all. Just leave the Henrietta situation where it is, I can keep an eye on her in school after all. Just talk to Dad and tell him what's going on when he comes back from his conference, though. I think he can tell something's up so he'll just be happy that you've told him - he won't be mad. He really cares about you - you are the favourite after all." I nudged him softly. His advice did make me feel better though; Dad being mad at me had been a big weight on my chest. "And with the other person... just give them space. They probably didn't realise you liked them like that so they might just need a bit of time to process but it most likely won't mean you've lost that friendship forever with that person." The way he said 'person' made me feel like he was trying to figure out who it was. "It'll work itself out in time I'm sure."

"Okay." I knew my brother was right; I just had to give Verity some time and space and hopefully things could go back to normal. It was just going to be hard during the initial awkward period. "Anyway how's your love life going?"

"Nah we're not talking about this." He closed up again and I laughed.

"Why not? Come onnn, someone told me you seemed to be getting close to a black haired girl?"

"Nope. Nothing to discuss here. Absolutely not." I could tell he was trying hard to withhold a laugh.

"Seriously? That's so lame. After I told you everything as well." He laughed and then groaned.

"I may... I may have also been rejected." He sighed. "You'd think it would be easy to get a girlfriend at an all girls' school but no, it's actually really hard."

"That sounds like a skill issue honestly." He poked me, and I laughed at him.

"Fuck off!" He said playfully, which just made me laugh harder.

"I'm joking! I'm literally in the same boat right now! We clearly need to just brush up on rizz together lol." 

"Yes, we need to adapt to these touch times ahead of us." He said in his best impression of a David Attenborough documentary. "Seriously though people do not flirt normally here; it's so different."

"I wholeheartedly agree." We laughed and Dylan put the documentary back on. I was so grateful that I had a brother like him; I don't know what I'd do without him at this point.