Broken Sister

Abi Branning had been had watched her eldest sisters life spiral out of control over the past few weeks. This is worse it had ever been. She was drinking continuously, returning home a complete and utter state, then went out again that evening, it was a destructive loop. Of course this wasn't the first time Lauren had used alcohol as an escape route in her life, she went down a similar path at the beginning of 2012, except it never got this bad. Little did Abi know that she had been shielded all of her life. Covered from most of the pain and hurt she could have been exposed to, this was down to her sister.

Lauren had taken the brunt of it all. In fact she was usually blamed for most things, Abi receiving hardly any of it. Her elder sister only really saw slight happiness when Joey Branning walked into their lives. Sure it was rocky at first but once everyone knew how much they loved each other, it was accepted. Abi noticed the change in Lauren, she barely drank, she smiled a lot which was a nice change, but most of all she was happy and finally loved.

Unfortunately nothing lasts long in their family and Lauren was left heartbroken again. Hitting the bottle hard, Abi watched Lauren go into full self-destruct mode, hell bent on forgetting Joey even existed. Her parents barely noticed the sudden change, too busy in their own lives to care that their daughter was drinking herself into an early grave. Abi had tried countless times to connect with Lauren to try and help her, but she had pulled her protective walls back up and wasn't letting anyone in, let alone her little sister.

Abi was fuming with Joey, how he could destroy her sister again was beyond her. She was fed up of seeing her usually sarcastic and funny sister crying and down every day.

As the weeks went by Lauren was progressively worse, Abi couldn't stand it anymore deciding to stay at Jay's for the evening, letting Tanya have some alone time with Lauren, finally noticing that they had a problem on their hands.

The following day, Abi returned home, rather shocked to find Lauren sat with Joey on the sofa, her mums face tear stained, her dads rather red and blotchy.

"What's he doing here?" she hissed pointing to Joey, who looked rather shocked at the tone of her voice.

"Chill Abs, it's okay" Lauren commented, trying to ease the anger she noticed pouring out of Abi towards Joey.

"No its not okay, don't you remember what he's done? Again, might I add" she replied, folding her arms over her chest shooting daggers in the direction of Joey.

"Of course I remember, but he had his reasons" Lauren sighed, she understood why her sister was finally being protective over her, she had seen what Joey breaking up with her had done to her, twice.

"Still doesn't justify it, you don't get to just walk back in when you feel like it Joey, you destroyed my sister, how do we know you won't do it again?" Abi hissed, Joey still in utter shock, he was only used to Lauren being this way, he had never experienced angry Abi.

"It wasn't just down to him babe, its mostly to do with me and your mum" Max commented, his eyes flicking between Abi and Tanya.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Babe, Lauren protected you a lot from things over the years, she knew a lot of things you never did, she covered you from it all, that's why she's so emotionally broken, it's down to us, Joey ending things with her just brought it all back to the surface" Max continued.

"But I don't understand" Abi whispered, tears welling in her eyes as she went to sit next to Lauren, holding onto her hand.

"Lauren found out my secrets, she took the full weight of them, and when your mum had cancer she knew for months in secret, she didn't want to see you hurt" Max explained so ashamed that his eldest daughter had faced so much from such a young age.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Abi whispered, wiping the tears from her eyes as Lauren squeezed her hand tightly.

"You were young, you didn't need to know these things Abs, one of us had to be normal" she chuckled, running her fingers through her little sisters hair.

"I'm so sorry" Abi whispered, pulling Lauren into a hug, still glaring a little at Joey who was sat the other side. "I'm still a little confused why Joey is here?".

"I need help Abi, Joey is one of the only people who can help me, we had an understanding" Lauren continued, feeling Joey's hand on her lower back providing support.

"But he hurt you" Abi commented quietly, as if no one else was in the room, just the two of them.

"And I hurt him to, my drinking pushed him to far, were both to blame" Lauren smiled, embracing how protective her little sister was of her, Abi was certainly stronger than she looked.

"If you hurt her again, I'll punch you" Abi warned sternly over her sister's shoulder at Joey, who just nodded in response, he wasn't going to mess with Abi.

"So what happens now?" Abi asked, it was all well and good saying that Lauren needs help and identifying the problem but something had to change.

"Well I'm going away with mum and Joey for a bit, just to clear my head" Lauren replied cautiously she didn't want to upset Abi.

"What? How long for?" Abi asked, her throat closing up a little as she felt the tears surfacing.

"Not long, just a few weeks, I need a break from here, from Lucy and Whitney, from this place" she sighed. "I am coming back Abs, I wouldn't leave you ever".

"Promise?" she whispered.

"I promised" Lauren smiled, linking her little finger with her sisters.