Chapter 4

"What's going on?" I asked, me and Austin still stood in the doorway. Austin was rooted to the spot and he'd gone rigid as soon as he saw our dad.

"We've been talking," Mom explained, "Me and your dad have decided that it's best for everyone if he spends some time away from us."

Austin let out the breath he'd been holding in and his tense shoulders loosened up.

"You can still visit him but he won't be living with us anymore. Not for a while, anyway." She added, glaring at him then quickly turning back to us.

"Actually," Dad interrupted, "I don't think it's a good idea for Austin to visit."

"What?" The anger that had been boiling up inside of me all day finally exploded. "He's your son! You can't just cut him out of your life."

"That f*g isn't my son."

"Dad! Stop calling him that!" I shouted at him.

Austin's face shone in the light and I saw it was streaked with tears. He angrily wiped them away and ran past all of us. I heard footsteps on the stairs and then his bedroom door slammed shut.

"Austin!" I called and ran after him. I got upstairs and knocked on his door. No reply. "Austin? It's me, Hayden." Still no reply.

I decided to go back to my room and leave him to calm down. As I closed the door, I saw my dad walk past into my parents' room. He came out ten minutes later with a bag full of his things and not long after, I heard the front door slam.

Half an hour later, after doing a bit of homework to distract myself, I got up and went back to Austin's room to check on him.

"Austin?" I said, gently knocking on his door. No answer again. I tried the handle but it was locked. "Austin!" I called, starting to panic slightly. Silence. I rang his phone but he didn't answer so I ran downstairs and found mom.

"Austin's door is locked and he's not answering his phone. I think he might've done something after dad... y'know..." I tried to explain.

"Follow me," She said, grabbing a set of keys from the kitchen drawer. She went upstairs and I followed behind her. "Austin!" She shouted first. When he didn't reply, she unlocked the door and ran inside. I ran in after her.

"What?" Austin said groggily, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. He'd been sleeping.

"How did you sleep through all that?" I asked, amazed.

"Sleep through what? What happened?" He looked really confused.

Mom looked from Austin to me and then just laughed.

"What?" Austin asked, clearly starting to get annoyed.

"Only you could sleep through that! You've been sleeping through everything since you were a baby," She explained. "Hayden and Lucas used to play around you all the time but you just slept through it all. Your dad..." She trailed off and looked kind of sad, then got up and left me and Austin.

Lucas was our older brother who'd moved out a few years ago with his fiancé. They were supposed to be getting married in a few months, actually.

"Hayden," Austin said, "Can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

"And you can't tell anyone. We're trying to keep it a secret but I need to tell someone."

"What is it?" Did he say 'we'? What does that mean?

"I um, I have, er, a boyfriend."

"Really? Great! I'm happy for you."

"It's Dylan." He looked down and seemed to get all shy.

"Oh, that's nice. When did you meet him then?"

"He added me on Snapchat a while ago and we started talking. It just kind of... grew from there."

Austin and I had been talking for about fifteen minutes when we heard loud banging coming from downstairs. I ran down to check on mom but stopped in the hallway. Dad was banging on the front door, yelling to be let in.

"Mom?" I turned around and saw her leaning against the kitchen doorframe, crying.

"I don't know what to do," Her voice quavered and tears were escaping faster than she could wipe them away. A wave of anger towards my dad came over me. I hated him for making her feel like this.

"What happened?"

"It doesn't matter, just take Austin back upstairs."

"I'm not five, mom, I can look after myself," Austin said, still standing on the stairs.

"You're right, I'm sorry, just please go upstairs, both of you."

I turned around reluctantly and we headed back upstairs, into my room. The banging finally stopped but we could still hear him yelling through the door. Austin looked uncomfortable so I put on some music to try and block it out.