A bit about my family, before I get into my story: My dad was killed in a car accident when I was 2, just a few months after my youngest sister Hannah was born. We were 'lucky', in that my mom was able to get a pretty decent settlement from the insurance company, plus my dad's life insurance, so we were financially stable, but not well off by any means.
So for the last 17 years our family consisted of me, Josh, now 19; my two sisters Hannah, 18, and Emily, 20; and finally our Mom, Karen, a 37-year old Registered Nurse.
Anyway, on to the story...
"Come on, Josh! I don't want to be late!" My sister, Emily, was tapping her fingers impatiently, waiting for me to take her to her boyfriend's house. It was Halloween, and I was taking her in my crappy Honda Civic.
"Come on!" Em was opening the door to go wait for me in the car, and I finally got up, to take her to her party. We got in, and started off to her boyfriend Brad's place. We didn't say much on the ride over. I didn't like Brad. He always gave me a weird vibe, a bit twitchy and short-tempered, but Em seemed to like him. I'd told her how I felt about Brad, and she didn't appreciate it. For the last couple of days, I'd been given the silent treatment by Emily, so the quiet ride wasn't that big of a surprise.
We finally got there, and she grabbed her phone and got out of the car. She didn't say a word of goodbye, just slammed the door and stalked to Brad's house.
I didn't have any Halloween parties to go to, so I just turned my car around, and started back. I was almost back home, when a text arrived on my phone. As soon as I picked it up to check the message, I cursed. "Fuck! She took the wrong phone. Idiot!" I called my own phone, but there was no answer. I rolled into our driveway, and tried a couple more times. Still no answer.
"Shit!" I needed my phone, so I quickly ran in to let my little sister know that I'd be taking another round trip to Brad's house. I got back in my car, and drove back to Brad's. I tried calling Em again, but still no answer. I didn't really want to see Brad, so I was hoping that I could just have Em come out with the phone, so we could quickly switch, but it seemed like I'd have to go knock on the door.
I went up to the front door, and knocked. I waited. No answer. I knocked again. After several minutes of knocking I tried the door. It was unlocked. I walked in, calling out. "Hello? Anyone here?"
I heard some muffled sounds from upstairs, and I thought, oh shit, they're having sex... How do I get my phone if the phone is on the nightstand, and they're in the bed fucking? Shit!
I snuck up the stairs, and the sounds continued, but these were not sex sounds. Brad had just started yelling. "You fucking slutty bitch! I know you're screwing that asshole Jason. Don't lie to me."
I heard my sister scream in fear, and I rushed up the stairs, and burst into the bedroom. Brad was straddling my sister on the bed, and he had a knife in his hand.
All of a sudden I found myself in the air, crashing into Brad, the both of us landing on the floor next to the bed in a heap. Luckily, Brad was stunned, and his reactions were slow, so I was able to get the knife out of his hand and toss it to the other side of the room. I scrambled up, and slammed the obviously drunk Brad to the floor, face down.
"Are you OK?" The words stumbled out of my mouth, as I looked up at the bed where Emily was now sitting up. She seemed in a daze, but she eventually said "yes, I'm OK... He kept saying I was sleeping with Jason... Oh my God, he could have killed me..."
I jumped up, and looked at Em. Her eyes were welling up with tears. She put her head in her hands and started crying. I sat down on the bed and wrapped my arms around her, still keeping a weary eye on Brad.
He was finally getting up, and had obviously realized what he'd done. He looked totally destroyed. He mumbled some apologetic sounding noises, and rushed out of the room, and down the stairs. A few seconds later, we heard the front door slam, and his car starting and driving away.
We sat there for several minutes, before Emily got her crying under control, and she told me what had happened. Brad had been very drunk when she had arrived, and he had gotten it in his head that Em was cheating on him with another student in her English class: Jason.
"But Jason is gay," Emily continued. "So definitely no sleeping with him."
I didn't want to add insult to injury, so I didn't comment on any of the misgivings I'd had about Brad. After a few more minutes, we got back in my car and drove home.
When we got home, mom was there, luckily. She knew what to do. She gave Emily some Ambien, and put her to bed.
We could all tell that Emily was pretty traumatized, so mom called a therapist she knew from the hospital, and got weekly sessions set up with her.
Emily seemed to recover pretty quickly. During the day, she was fine, still going to classes and doing assignments, all giving the appearance of having made a complete recovery. And the weekly therapy sessions were helping.
nights were the problem. I heard her crying many nights in her room; I'd go sit with her in her bed, and let her cry on my shoulder, and talk if she felt the need.
After about a week, Emily started coming to my room instead. The conversations kept going. We'd talk about what happened that Halloween night, or what her therapist had said, or just general stuff. She'd have the occasional good cry, and then she'd shuffle off to bed after an hour or so.
It started to become a bit of a habit. She'd be there in my bedroom door, saying 'Hey, you got a few minutes?" "For my sister, always!" I'd respond.
One night she told me that Brad's parents had called her. Brad had gone into rehab for his alcohol problem, and when he had completed that, he would be transferring to an out-of-state school. He had realized that he needed a total reset, to get out of the trouble he was in.