Wednesday 24th August

Oh my life. Today was a rollercoaster of emotions and I don't think that ever, during a summer vacation have I felt the saddest I've ever felt in my life. So, it was about one in the afternoon when Iggy asked me to go to the store and get a few things. I got some carrier bags together and walked out the door. When I made my way down the hill, I started to panic because on the other side of the road, Abi was walking round the bend. I knew I couldn't cross the road now because she was too close to me now and to my surprise, she crossed the road before I did and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Hello, Larry." she said in a voice that screamed sinister.

"Uh…hello, Abi." I replied, not really knowing whether to be rude or friendly.

"How is Iggy doing without me?"

"Fine. In fact, he hasn't talked about you for ages."

Abi frowned. "Has he not?"

"Nope." I replied. "And me and my other siblings haven't talked about you for ages either, since you've been so toxic to us."

"What?" Abi exclaimed, pretending to be surprised. "I only said that you don't belong in the UK! How is that toxic?"

"Where we decide to live is none of your concern and you've been slagging us off behind Iggy's back as well."

"Whatever. I just want to tell Iggy I'm sorry about everything. I heard that his car broke down and I wanted to apologise."

This seemed really weird and I thought for a moment that Abi was going to do something bad, but I just couldn't think what. Most of all, did…did she think I was stupid or something?

"Seriously?!" I exclaimed. I was becoming quite frustrated with her now. "It happened over a month ago, you've had plenty of time and now you choose to apologise?!"

"It was a lot of thinking to do!" Abi protested.

"Just to say one word?"

"Ugh, you wouldn't understand. Judging by your face, this obviously isn't something you've been through before."

I was very offended but I tried to not let it get to me. "No, no. I'm sorry, I'm not letting you near Iggy again." I said, shaking my head. "Lord knows what bad stuff you're going to accuse him of if you do get back together, which is never in a million years, going to happen, now if you'll excuse me, I've got some shopping to do."

I stole one last glance up at Abi's face before turning round and walking in the other direction. Even though I couldn't see her anymore, I was still thinking about the expression on her face. It was as if she were about to hit me right across the face. After I took a couple steps up the hill in the direction of my house, I could sense Abi following me and then she did something that nearly shocked me out of my skin. All of a sudden, she wrapped her arms around me tightly and didn't let go. I didn't know what was going on, but I was guessing that she was trying to kill me.

"You're going to pay, Riley!" she shouted.

I knew that if I didn't act fast, then this was probably going to be the end. I screamed and shouted for help, but it wasn't easy since Abi had her arms tightly wrapped around my stomach. At one point, Abi let go of me with one hand, but with the other, she was holding my T-shirt, so I took this opportunity to let out a massive, "HELP!"

Luckily, my house windows were open and after a few seconds, Iggy came rushing out the front door and he tried to rip Abi off of me. I examined my upper arms meticulously. They were covered in red finger marks where I had been squeezed, and when I looked up, Abi had pulled out her phone. She was calling the Police! I was furious to see that she was putting on a terrified voice and she started fake crying. I was also kind of relieved that I wasn't being harmed anymore, but I was deeply worried about Iggy. Now that the Police were on their way, what was going to happen? When Abi got off the phone, she giggled at us and said, "Game over, guys."

"How could you do something like that?" Iggy shouted, pinning her against the wall. "What did you think you were doing? That was child abuse! Now you've got nothing to accuse me of in court, have you?!"

I was expecting Abi to be scared, but she just grinned and replied with, "Even if you say you did nothing, they won't believe you."

Just then, there was a faint wail of sirens and gradually, they got louder and louder and a police car pulled up next to us. The sirens must've been so loud that it caught Lemmy and Wendy's attention and they came running out of the house.

"This man tried to attack me!" Abi exclaimed as the policemen got out of the car.

"Sir, please step away from the victim," said one.

Victim? I thought. As everything else was going on, Abi was 'discreetly' squeezing her upper arms to make it seem like she actually had been abused. It made me want to scream in anger at how fake she was being about everything. The next thing the Police did made me and my siblings panic. They put Iggy's arms behind his back, handcuffed him and bundled him in the car with him protesting, "Let me go! I'm innocent!"

I knew that they were going to court now, so I beckoned to my siblings to follow me and run after the car. We all ran as fast as we could, but we slowed down to a walk when we were tired. I couldn't believe my eyes when we reached the courtroom building because we were surrounded by people, but some of them I recognised. Iggy's good friend Rosie Campbell was there too. So we ran up to her and told her everything that happened. Then we saw the big, wooden doors were open and there were people already in there, so, arm in arm, we entered the building and there in front of me was a sight that I never thought I'd see in all my life.

Iggy was sitting in the dock with the Judge sitting high up next to him. Also, there were rows of joined up seats, ones that looked like pews in a church. The judge gave the audience a gesture for silence and the room fell quiet. There was a shuffling of paper on a desk near the front of the room.

"Guilty." the head of the jury eventually announced. The judge cleared his throat before beginning his speech.

"Iggy Riley, you have been announced guilty for aggravated assault. Am I correct?"

"Y-Yes, your honour." Iggy replied.

In his voice, I could tell that his Anxiety was being triggered and I really wanted to help, but I couldn't.

"May I add that people who know you well are shocked that you have displayed this behaviour in Public. You have young siblings, yet you think it's appropriate to assault a woman of your age behind their backs." continued the judge.

I looked over to where Abi was sitting and she had a big, fat smile on her face and it made me want to stand up from my seat, stroll over to her and smack that wicked grin off her face until my hands got sore. She obviously knew that Iggy was too scared to say anything and I don't think he wanted to embarrass us either. Just then, I felt a squeeze on my hand and I looked beside me. Lemmy looked like he was going to cry, so I put a comforting arm around him.

"This, quite frankly, is Quinstone's biggest incident."

I was so angry to hear what was being said about my brother. Really, it should've been Abi sitting in the dock and being talked to as if she was the worst person in the world, which was what she deserved. Then, the judge shocked us with what he said next. "You are a bad influence on everybody, Riley. I sincerely doubt that your family will still love you after all this."

That statement must've been like a knife to the heart because he looked over to us with tears in his eyes. Still, I didn't have the guts to tell the truth, but now I had left it too late and I felt awful for not sticking up for my own brother. By the way the judge was talking, he was definitely going to jail.

"Iggy Riley, I sentence you…to two months in prison!" announced the judge.

Me and my siblings looked at each other worriedly. We all shouted over to Iggy when he was being led out of the courtroom handcuffed. "I'm so, so sorry, guys!" he shouted back to us. "Please, take care of the kids, Rosie!"

"I will!" she shouted.

When Iggy was out of sight, Lemmy started crying and I hugged him tight as Rosie came out of her row of seats. "Don't worry, guys." she said reassuringly. "I'll look after you all."

"Why did this have to happen?" Lemmy sobbed as tears ran down his cheeks. "Why?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "But we can't really do anything about this now."

"Larry's right." Rosie said. "It's too late. Now, come along, I'm taking you home."

Slowly, we started walking out of the courtroom and there were a few seconds of deathly silence, so I tried to lighten the mood by saying, "Don't worry, guys. I'm sure those two months will go by quickly."

To my surprise and my least expectancy, Wendy turned on me angrily. "Oh, shut up, Larry, it's not like you have anything to say about it!"

I was very hurt, being spoken to like that and by my own sister, who was always nice to me, but after some thinking, I began to realise that this was all my fault. We barely said a word to each other the whole way home. I felt so bad, but I didn't mean for any of this to happen. At Rosie's house, we all had closets in our rooms when there were times when we stayed over. When we entered the house and took off our shoes, we were greeted by Rosie's golden retriever, Ruby. She was the type of dog who could understand your emotions and the best part about her was that I felt like I could stroke her silky, golden ears all day.

Personally, I think Rosie's house is much nicer than mine, but I wouldn't want to live there for a long time because I would get a bit homesick. Everytime we stayed there, me and Lemmy shared a double bed and Wendy slept in a single bed in another room and I knew that we were doing the same as we did every time. There wasn't really anything for us to do and I knew that I couldn't go to my favourite place in Quinstone because I probably wouldn't return home until it was dark. I spent most of the afternoon on my own since I thought that none of my siblings wanted to talk to me.

Dinner wasn't actually as bad as I thought because I didn't particularly like boiled vegetables, but I think that because of the fact that I was at Rosie's, it made my meal a lot better and I ended up eating nearly everything. Now that it was summer, I couldn't decide whether to take my shower in the morning or evening, but I hadn't had one today, so I asked my siblings if they wanted to wash after me and Lemmy joked about the idea and insisted that the youngest goes first. When it was my turn, I felt relieved to finally feel cold water on my body because it seemed to cool my emotions, but unfortunately, that feeling didn't last for long.

It was when me and Lemmy were in our room talking when I felt really strange. I hadn't stayed here for ages and it felt weird to be here again. Soon, it was time to put out the lights and go to sleep. When the light switched off, I blinked in the darkness and I started to think about Iggy. What would he be doing right now? Would he already be asleep, or was he being kept up by all the stress? I didn't know, but I hoped that the Police weren't too harsh on him. What would he eat? What kind of bed would he sleep in?

All of these thoughts were worrying me like mad and I was becoming increasingly hot, so I kicked off my side of the duvet, led on my front and rested my forehead on my arms. I tried to nod off, but I couldn't. I thought that Iggy being taken to prison was the last thing I would ever see, or at least something I would never see. It felt weird because I wasn't stressed out at the time, but I was now. I didn't realise I had been crying until cold, little fingers touched me on the arm.

"Larry?"

It was Lemmy. I assumed that my sharp intakes of breath had woken him up. "Larry? Are you okay?" he whispered.

I sighed, sat up in bed and folded my arms. Lemmy switched on the lamp and he started rubbing me on the shoulder when he saw the state of me.

"Do you miss Iggy?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Do you want me to get Rosie?"

Again, I nodded. Lemmy scrambled off the bed and said to me, "I'll be right back." and he exited the room.

Normally, when I'm upset, I don't really talk much, I just stare ahead and let my tears flow, but this time, I couldn't help it. I leant back on my pillow, put my hands over my face and wept. I still felt gutted that I had left it too late to stick up for Iggy in court. My self-consciousness had taken over that thought and now I fully understood why Wendy was rude to me on the way home and I also understood why nobody spoke to me all afternoon. As I said earlier, I only had myself to blame.

Presently, I heard Rosie and Lemmy coming back upstairs again. I hastily dried my eyes and lifted my head up off the pillow. Rosie lay down on the bed between me and Lemmy and she put an arm around us both.

"Right now, my darlings, it seems like you're in the centre of a great hurricane." she said. "But I promise you, in the future, that hurricane will start to die down and you will be happy again."

"I know." I said. "But I was just thinking about when we were in court. Iggy was getting totally humiliated in front of all those people and I didn't do anything about it. I just didn't have the guts to speak out, and since we barely spoke to each other on the way here, it made me think that I had torn this family apart because I was the one that was causing you to come outside when I was assaulted and I was the one getting in trouble, yet I couldn't even stick up for him!" By this time, my eyes had gone all teary again. "What kind of brother am I?"

Rosie cuddled me close. "It's okay." she said. "I know that you're one of the best brothers out there and Iggy still loves you. I think you'll start to realise that when he sends you letters."

"Why letters?" I asked.

"You're not allowed phones in prison."

For a moment, this made me sad because that meant that I would hear from him less frequently.

"But don't worry, bro." Lemmy said. "I'm sure he's going to be fine. Are you feeling any better?"

At Lemmy's comforting voice, I smiled and he wiped the tears from my face. Rosie got off the bed and made her way towards the door. She blew a kiss to both of us and we caught it.

"Goodnight." she whispered as we lay down to sleep. "See you tomorrow."

I thought that I would have nightmares like I did about a week ago, but fortunately, I dreamed very happy dreams all night.

AN: Hey, another chapter done! If you want to get to know a little bit more information about Rosie, then read Chapter 4 of Painful Revelations; it should give you a bit of info. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed the chapter and have a great day :)