My Brother Isn't Going To Like This

Changes

Clara Wright had always had a special bond with her brother Parker. From the moment she was born, he had taken on the role of protective older brother. It had stayed that way their whole lives, even as they grew up into the teenagers that they are today. They were each other's best friend, and no matter what challenged the bond they shared, the pair always overcome it.

Parker however, did have another best friend besides his little sister. Jason Haynes. They had met in the hospital, only moments after birth and been friends ever since. Every weekend, Parker, Jason and Clara would be together. When they were children, their time was spent playing silly little games like hide and seek or tag you're it but as they grew older those games turned into bike rides and now that Parker and Jason were eighteen and Clara was sixteen, those bike rides had become trips to the movies, hanging out at the mall and having road trips around the States.

It was inevitable that the two boys would become friends. Clara and Parker's mother, Alice, was best friends with Jason's mother, Penny. They had done everything together, including getting married and pregnant at the same time. They even gave birth to Parker and Jason in beds that were next to each other.

Fun memories.... but Clara wasn't smiling now.

She was sat next to her brother on the sofa with their mother sat opposite them, in the arm chair. They had been called downstairs into the family room by her, and thinking nothing of it the two had obeyed.

It was only once they had entered the family room that they realised that something was really wrong. Their mother was deeply upset about something.

Seriously concerned, it was Clara who had spoken first and asked their mother what was wrong. It was then that she had instructed them to sit down, and once they did, she broke the terrible, heartbreaking news to them.

Jason's mother, also Alice's best friend, had been killed by a mugger who had shot her in the heart after she refused to hand over her purse. A few days later, his father, Alan, was arrested for attempted murder after a run in with the mugger who had killed his wife - leaving their son without either of his parents.

Many years ago, back before they'd had children, Penny had always told Alice that she would be the only person trusted with her children, should anything happen to her.

So after giving them the news about Penny and Alan, Clara and Parker's mother had informed them that Jason would be coming to live with them up until college, which would be another five months and not long after Jason would become a legal adult.

Receiving this news, Clara sat still with shock. Glancing over at her brother and seeing his distraught state, she reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder as the room went into a state of painful silence.

Their father, Mark, currently at work and would most likely be told the news when he came home. In the meantime, both she and Parker had been instructed by their mother to clean out the spare room in their four bedroom house, as they would be leaving to pick up Jason from police custody at seven that evening.

Clara was the first to move. She felt absolutely awful. Alan and Penny had always treated her and Parker as though they were their children. Whenever their parents were not available, they would make sure that they were taken over. Though despite how awful she felt, she couldn't bare to imagine what Jason must be going through. Losing his mother at such a young age while his father goes to jail for acting out was absolutely tragic.

She wasn't the kind of girl who would cry so easily, but this....this made her want to ball her eyes out nonstop for a whole week. As she began to head up the stairs, she felt the weight and heard the creak of a second pair of feet following behind her. Instantly, she knew that it was Parker. Over the years she had learned his distinctive sounds.

They weren't twins but it was as though they had the bond that only twins would have. She could sense when something was not right with him and vice versa.

Once they were both inside the spare room, she felt his hand reach out and grab her sleeve. Turning around, she caught his eyes immediately with her twinkling green ones.

"You okay?" He asked, his voice soft with concern.

"Not really, I mean... finding out something like that is just hard, you know?" She answered honestly.

"I know." He whispered.

She could see the tears in his eyes that were threatening to fall and pulled him into one of their familiar hugs. His arms instantly tightened around her as his head sunk into her shoulder.

"We should uhhh...we should get this room cleared out, there's only a couple of hours until Jason will be here." He stuttered as he pulled back and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt.

Clara nodded, unable to get words out anymore through the lump that had formed in her throat. With a heavy heart, she picked up the first box that was on top of the pile and set it down on the dresser that was on the opposite side of the room. Opening it up, her mouth tugged upwards into a small and sad smile. Reaching in and picking up the framed photograph that she found, she dusted it off using the bottom of her t-shirt.

Captured in a visual memory forever was their mother and father along with Penny and Alan, on the day of their high school graduation. Just by looking at it, Clara could tell that it was one of the happiest and proudest days of her parents lives. In the photograph they were happy and looked as though they didn't have a care in the world.

If only being a teenager was that easy these days, she thought to herself silently as she placed the picture on the oak wood surface of the dresser and continued to dig through the box.

The next framed photograph that she came across was one of herself and Parker. It was taken in the family room, a couple of days after their mother was released from the hospital. In the photo, Parker was cradling her in his arms. He was two years old at the time and she was just a tiny newborn. Despite the dark turn that their day had taken, seeing this old photo brightened it a little. She felt as though it was one that did not deserve to be tucked away into a box due to lack of room and decided that she would take it to keep into her room.

Although they were physically preparing for Jason to live with them, Clara was having an extremely hard time mentally preparing herself for the change. It was a pretty huge shift and would make it so much harder to hide the secret that she had been keeping from Parker since she was only twelve years old.

Her secret was that she had been harbouring feelings for Jason pretty much since she had hit puberty. But Parker wasn't the only one who did not have a clue about how she felt. She had also been hiding it from Jason himself for all these years and with him about to be living with them, it made it even harder for her to keep her feelings buried. She didn't hide them away because she was afraid of how she felt, but because she knew that if she said anything then she would lose Jason's friendship and her close relationship with her brother which was something that she was not willing to sacrifice.

There was only one thing for it. She would have use one of the idiots from school who had tried it on with her in the past to distract herself from the boy that she really wanted.

Completely out of the blue, Parker's phone began to ring, throwing her train of thought off its tracks. She turned around and watched her brother as he pressed the answer button and placed it on loud speaker before placing it on the desk and returning to the box he was digging through.

"What's up babe? I'm kinda busy right now?" He spoke aloud.

Ugh. That's just great, Clara thought to herself as she realised who it was calling.

Parker's girlfriend, Natalie Maddock was your average fake blonde, plastic high school Barbie doll. She wouldn't have minded her brother dating a girl like this if it weren't for the fact that Natalie hated her guts. Sure, when Parker was around she was all sweet and sugary with her, but as soon as his back was turned she was a completely different person.

She would have told her brother about this, except that she did not want to ruin her brother's happiness. He seemed so smitten with her, and so in love that ruining their relationship would make her feel like a total b***h.

"Can you come over? I'm bored." Natalie whined down the phone.

"I'm sorry but I can't right now. There is just so much to do around here. I'll make it up to you tomorrow though, I promise." Parker informed her, his tone sappy and full of sorrow.

"Oh. Too busy for me? Right, got it!" Natalie snapped.

"No babe, I didn't..." Parker began to explain but stopped when the phone beeped, signaling that she had already hung up the call.

Poor Parker. This was not the first time that Natalie had made him feel bad whenever he couldn't see to her requests. There was one time after Clara's first break up, that Parker had taken her out to lunch and a movie to cheer her up and just as they were about to enter the theatre, Natalie had called and asked him to a classmate's party. He had refused, telling her that he was spending quality time with his family, which resulted in her yelling at him down the phone until he decided to hang up.

With time wearing thin, the pair continued to sort through everything in the room. Taking things out that did not belong in there and bringing in things that would make Jason's stay far more comfortable.

Once they had finished with the room, Clara picked up the framed photograph and took it with her into her room.

Despite her parents wishes, she was not exactly a good girl with straight A's and perfect grades. In fact, she was almost the complete opposite. Her attendance record was rather sketchy and her grades fell somewhere between D and F. Each term, her parents expected her to do better and so did Parker, but each term they were severely disappointed. She was the complete opposite of her brother, who had both perfect attendance and perfect grades. She even dressed so differently that her parents disapproved most days.

While Parker would be dressing smartly and appropriately for every occasion, Clara would wear whatever she liked, whenever she liked. Most times, her outfits were extremely inappropriate too. There were even times when she had been sent home from school because her outfit did not follow the dress code. She was a tough girl who was pretty bad ass, but it was not without reason.