My Boyfriends Brother

Chapter 11 Sierra’s Sanity

Today is my birthday. Not exactly how I was expecting it to be. Mathew and I were planning a trip to Boston but since his death I obviously wasn’t going to go without him. I didn’t know what I was going to do. 

After realizing I am crazy for imagining Mathew actually being here, I kinda lost it. I rolled over in my bed and realized Michael was still sound asleep. He has been such a light for me this past week. I blame my guilty conscience for fabricating the ghost of Mathew. To think I actually thought I was a medium and could see and talk to him. I’ll have to tell Michael about it. Not now though. I didn’t want to think about Mathew because it made my heart hurt. I loved him so much and now that he’s gone I feel...empty. 

Except when I’m with Michael. I wanted to deny it but I was actually starting to like him. Like really like him. Was it wrong? Probably but right now I didn’t care. I was just going to live my life and have fun while I can. Mathews sudden and very young death made me realize how we try so hard to be somewhere in life and ignore the present. Right now Michael was my present and Mathew was my past. I never thought I’d lose Mathew. I thought we would’ve gotten married and had a family. That we would have grown old together. But that dream died the moment Mathew did. 

Michael let out a small groan as he tossed around a little and opened his eyes, meeting mine. He smiled and said, “good morning gorgeous. Happy birthday.” 

I smiled in return and said, “good morning. You sleep well?” 

“Oh VERY well thank you,” he laughed. “Last night was ummm, pretty great. Especially since we were both sober,” he winked at that last part. 

I laughed and responded, “yeah... it was pretty good,” I winked in return. “Thanks for staying the night.” 

“Anytime Sierra.” 

We eventually got up and I got dressed. Michael put on the clothes he wore yesterday because that’s all he had thanks to our impromptu sleepover. 

“Can I take you to breakfast?” He asked. 

“I’d like that, thanks,” I smiled and went to get my purse and keys. 

“Can we stop at my place first? I gotta change and I got you something for your birthday,” Michael said as we got into his car. 

“Yeah of course!” I told him and we were on our way to his place. 

I couldn’t help but think of last night and the craziness of yesterday. I don’t know how I could have imagined Mathew’s ghost to be there. After he disappeared, I knew it must’ve just been in my mind. Ghosts don’t exist and I was so mad at myself for believing it could be true. I wanted it to be true. How could I not? Mathew was the love of my life and he died so suddenly. I was thankful for Michael though. He had been the only one to make me feel good. Nothing else really did. As much as I loved the ocean, it had been getting harder and harder to find peace with it. After the hallucinations I had at the beach yesterday, I think it might be awhile before I try to go back there. 

I noticed we had pulled into Michael’s apartment complex as he said, “be right back! Don’t go anywhere!” And he hopped out the car and ran to his apartment. 

I started just looking around out of boredom. His apartment complex was okay, wasn’t in the best of shape but what college kid treats anything well? You could tell college kids lived here due to the random sprinkle of solo cups throughout the place. 

Michael scared me as he flung open the drivers side door and hopped in. He seemed to notice because he laughed and said, “did I scare you?”

“No!” I lied. “You just, uh, surprised me.” 

“Well hopefully I can SURPRISE you again, with this,” he said holding out a little box. The box was attempted to be wrapped and it made me laugh. 

“Nice wrapping job Mike!” 

“Hey! I’m good at a lot of things okay, wrapping just isn’t near the top of the list,” he joked. “Now would you like to open this now...or later?” 

“Hmmm...I’m impatient, so probably now,” I said as I took the box from his hand. I quickly unwrapped his horrible wrap job and noticed it was a box made to hold jewelry. I eyed him out of the corner of my eye and slowly opened the box. 

Inside the box was a silver necklace and on the chain hung a silver scallop seashell. 

“It’s beautiful Michael,” I said while taking the necklace out of the box and held it up. “Can you help me put it on?” I asked. 

“Of course,” he said, reaching out to take it. 

I held up my hair and turned so he could clasp the hooks together. The silver felt cold against my skin and as Michael’s hand brushed against my neck, I shivered. As he finished, I let down my hair and turned back over and pulled down the visor and flipped open the mirror. It was beautiful and the silver complemented my cool skin tone very well. I turned back looking at Michael and saw him staring at me a way I never saw him before. He looked at me almost longingly. 

“Thank you Michael,” I said reaching a hand out and resting it against his cheek. He reached up and put a hand over mine. 

“Of course Sierra. I know how much you love seashells.” It was true, I collected them like crazy. I had a whole sofa table dedicated to shells in my house. I found them so beautiful. Each one looked unique to me and the similar at the same time. I found them delicately beautiful. 

I hadn’t realized but I was leaning closer towards Michael’s face. I glanced down at his lips, feeling the feeling the desire to press them against mine. I pulled away though before we had a chance. 

Michael cleared his throat and said, “so um, about breakfast. Where would you like to go?”