Miley walked around the park, taking heavy footsteps as she went. As she was walking past a grey trashcan near a bench, she raised her left foot and with a bang, it fell over from her foot kicking it. She screamed from her anger, pulling her long brown hair. She was making a scene, but she was too angry to care. She was about to walk away, but she bumped into a strong chest, almost causing her to fall down.
"What's wrong, Miley?" Joe asked Miley, gripping her shoulders gently. He sat down on the bench and pulled her to sit down next to him. "Talk to me," he whispered, lifting her chin up with his index finger and turned her head to look into his chocolate brown eyes.
She looked into the big brown eyes of her best friend and mumbled, "I wouldn't want to bore you with the details of my sad life." She let out a small, weak laugh and tucked a strand of hair behind her pierced ear. She sat there for a few minutes, thinking. "My parents are fighting again," she said after a while, breaking the silence.
As soon as he heard what Miley said, he quickly turned his head to face her. "If it's too much for you to handle," he frowned, "you could always come stay with me." He smiled weakly at her. "I mean, us... Nick is my brother, and you're dating my brother..." he trailed off. "And you'd like to be with him." He looked down at his feet. Miley didn't know how much it killed him to say those words because he was crazy in love with her. What killed him even more was that Miley, his best friend, was dating his brother.
"Yeah," she replied. "That would be awesome," she murmered, pulling up her sleeve an inch or so, which wasn't enough for Joe to see the purple bruises on her arm caused by her boyfriend, Joe's brother. She sat for a moment, silently thinking about her relationship with Nick. They certainly weren't on good terms right now, and Miley longed to be free from him. Nick was forcing her to be with him. He threatened her if she ever dared to leave him. She would be punished if she told a soul about what he was doing to her.
She shook her head to push away those thoughts. "I just hope everything will be okay between them," she choked on her tears. "About my parents. I pray that they won't get a divorce. That would ruin my life." As if it wasn't ruined already, she thought.
"How about we go do something to take your mind off of it?" Joe suggested. "We could go to the movies or get frozen yogurt." He desperately wanted to hang out with Miley, even though he saw her at his house almost everyday when Miley came over. Although, they only said a short hello to each other before Miley went off to go with Nick. "I missed you, Miles."
"I would like that," she smiled at Joe. "In fact, I would absolutely love that." She felt her iPhone buzz and pulled it out of her pocket.
'come over to my place' It was from Nick. She sighed and pressed the 'Close' button on the screen. "Maybe we could go to your place and...hang out with Nick." She bit her lip. "Nick wants me to come over. That way, no one would feel left out."
"But you always hang out with him!" He frowned as he saw Miley cringe from him raising his voice. "Miley, I'm sorry I yelled," he sighed. "I was just hoping to have some alone time with you. We always hung out together, but that changed when you started dating Nick." He was so close to crying, but he forced himself not to. That wouldn't be a manly thing for him to do in public. Besides, it was a stupid thing to cry over. "You're not the same person anymore, Miles. Not the Miley I used to know," he explained. "You've changed."
Miley stood up from the bench. She wiped her tears away. She hated to admit it, but Joe was right. She had changed, and Nick changed her. A sadness was taking control, deep down inside and she was doing her best to hide it and pretend like she was okay. "It sounds like you're jealous!" Miley cried at him with tears falling down her pale face. She shook her head. "I would like to spend some alone time with you, too, but I can't." The girl was breathing heavily now. Yelling and crying was tiring her out. "I just can't," she said softly.
Joe listened closely to what Miley had to say. He watched her sadly and looked into her hurt eyes. Now, he stood up, too, and wrapped his arms around the girl who was yelling at him, giving her a tight hug. "Miley, calm down. It's okay. I'm sorry," he whispered in her ear, stroking her hair lightly. "It's okay..." he rocked back and forth with her in his arms.
Miley buried her head into Joe's chest and let her tears fall. "Joe, I'm so sorry for yelling at you," she said, pulling her face back from his neck and looked at him. "It's just so hard sometimes. And I lose my temper," she tried explaining to him.
"No, you have nothing to apologize for," Joe told her. He hugged her tightly. He rested her head on his shoulder and kept her held in the embrace, still stroking her hair. Looking up, he saw his brother standing across from them, a few feet away, glaring at them. He was not happy.