Mina: Did you go no contact by choice?
Leo: Yes and no.
Mina: What happened?
Leo: Story for a story?
I grind my teeth, hesitating. It’s hard to get rid of my doubts even though I have no reason to believe he’ll shut me down for being honest about my family.
When Leo and I finally take it to the next step, he’s going to find out about it anyway. I might as well rip this particular Band-Aid off.
Mina: As long as you go first.
Seeing the three little dots immediately pop up makes my uncertainty creep away that I might’ve said the wrong thing. This will be the first time Leo’s opened up to me about his past. It’s not like he’s ever been closed off; rather, the opportunity has never presented itself.
Leo: I had a friend who I considered my brother, and my parents started to recognize him as their son. We were opposites when it came to some things. I had trouble with anger and authority figures, so I always got in trouble at school. He had never been called into the principal’s office before. Dad thought he was the perfect influence on me.
Leo: At the time, I didn’t notice that he was trying to isolate me from friends and girlfriends. I was young and too stupid to see he was doing the same thing with my parents. It was all part of his grand plan to integrate himself into my life.
Leo: When I eventually stopped being fucking blind and opened my eyes, I cut him off. It was too late, though. My parents believed him over me.
My eyes widen further with each message that comes through. Who is he talking about? All the photos I could find of his childhood consisted of hockey, Sabrina, and Mitchell. No one else.
No mom or dad in any picture, or grandparents smiling cheesily at the camera. This must be why I only found his family through Sabrina’s social media.
At least there’s some solace in the fact that he didn’t leave his family and end up by himself. He has two people who seem to have stuck around through thick and thin, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that Sabrina loves her brother to the moon and back.
Mina: What did he do?
Leo: Planted drugs in my room, then ran to them saying he was worried about how I’d been acting weird. I spent the last year of high school locked in my room if I wasn’t at work, practice, or school. My dad couldn’t even look at me. Mom made me eat dinners in my room whenever he came home and joined them at the table. But even before then, I could see how they were favoring him over me.
Fucking hell.
Leo would’ve been, what? Seventeen? Then to spend years before that trusting someone, thinking they always had his back, choosing them as his second family, only to be betrayed. And not just by a so-called friend, but by the people who raised him.
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine being in his shoes when my mother has been comparing me to other people since the day I was born. Telling me how much better they are, how happy she’d be if she had a daughter like them.
She’s never gone out and replaced me, even though I’m sure she thinks about it every time she remembers I exist. My heart twists, picturing it happening.
Mina: Tell me karma hit the asshole?
Leo: It will one day.
That’s not good enough in my books.
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek, imagining myself telling my mother never to contact me again because of all the timesshe’s hurt my feelings. All I can feel thinking about it is fear and regret.
Mina: How did it feel when you moved out and stopped talking to them altogether?
Leo: Liberating.
Leo: Your turn.
I blow out a breath. After hearing his story, I don’t particularly want to tell him mine. I just sound... whiny. Or maybe like an ungrateful brat.
Mina: My issues aren’t interesting in the slightest. It’s all textbook and boring.
Leo: There isn’t a single thing about you that bores me.
