You Plus Me Equals

A beautiful girl around his age, maybe a little older, stood in front of the door wearing a mid-knee pink strapless gown and her long brown hair curled around her face delicately. Her big blue eyes sparkled under the porch light and she wore a smile set innocently on her face. She had a long oval face shape and milky white skin, with a dainty nose and thin lips. She blinked expectantly up at him, her hands clenched around her purse.

"Hi, can I help you?" Leo asked, confused.

'Had she meant to go to one of the houses next door?'

"Oh, Mia you are here, darling, please come inside. Leo, what are you doing letting Mia just stand there." His mom called from behind him enthusiastically.

"Um, yeah, come on in." Leo moved out of the way and she stepped inside. He closed the door behind her.

"Thanks, for getting the door for me." She said sweetly staring up at him, expectantly.

"Uhh, yeah sure, I mean I was already holding it." Leo looked at her, a bad feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

"You can just leave your shoes there, just stay away from the walls."

"Look at my two adorable babies getting along already. See Dad, I told you they would get along beautifully." My mom started happily tapping on my dad's c.h.e.s.t.

"Mia is your father's newest financial client's daughter. She went to school in England and just got back. Her father couldn't stop raving about how good she was with numbers, and how she would be a great hire." His mom raved.

"So you invited her to dinner to check out her resume?" Leo questioned snarkily.

Mia flushed.

"Oh, you are always so hilarious Leo, adorable, isn't he adorable dad?"

His dad nodded as if they were agreeing on some new fact they had just observed for the first time.

"Leo takes after his dad and is in his third year of finance. Mia just finished her financial degree. Leo isn't that great."

"Uhh, yeah… Congratulations on your degree?" He said tentatively, unsure if that was what they expected of him.

"Thanks." She beamed up at him again.

"Let's eat?" Leo angled it as a question but headed for the table where his mom had laid everything out.

He walked around to the seat he normally took and his mom gave him a stern glare.

Mia pulled out the chair opposite to his own and sat down.

Leo shrugged, pulled out his chair, and sat down.

'If you want me to be a gentleman for a girl I am hoping you are not trying to set me up with right now, you had better try harder than making my favorite dishes for supper.' he thought.

'But he supposed he could humor his mother, it's not like he was dating anyone right now, and he wasn't interested in girls he could just let her down at the end of the night. Gently.'

Leo started heaping food onto his plate and his mom chatted with Mia while glancing back at me, her gaze demanding I serve Mia like it was the nineteen twenties or something.

He rolled his eyes.

"Do you want some stir-fried vegetables?" He held out the plate obedient.

"Oh, it's okay you don't have too. I'll get it, thanks." she leaned forward and grabbed the bottom of the plate directly where his hand was the tips of her nails scratching his flesh lightly back and forth all while watching him sweetly. Leo let go of the plate quickly and it dropped a little as she unexpectedly had to hold up the weight of the large plate with one hand.

"Thanks, I'm sorry about your hand, it didn't hurt, did it, I have such long nails sometimes, if you want I can take a look at it?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks." Leo said quickly, shutting down her advances and digging into his food. He stared at his plate to avoid any eye contact with her as he got the sense that the little angel personality was all an act and that for some reason she had set her sights on Leo tonight.

"So, Leo, what are you planning to do when you get out of college? Will you be moving back in here after? I am sure it would delight Laura to have both her amazing boys back under the same roof as her again." Mia stated, in her overly sweet delicate voice.

Leo's fork dropped and he swallowed the last bite of food from his fork like we were eating dirt instead of juicy succulent meat.

'Both her boys?'

"Mom?" he looked up and his mom looked nervously at her plate.

His dad cleared his throat and sniffed before taking a sip of red from his wine glass.

"Yes, isn't it wonderful, your mom has just been raving about how excited she is for Caspian to be coming home? She could barely stop, for the past few weeks that's all I could hear about, Caspian and Leo will come home, Caspian will start work at the firm with us soon. Her excitement was infectious. I felt like I."

Leo slammed his fists on the table and stood up.

Mia jumped back startled, her fake smile fading immediately.

Leo tried not to feel utterly hurt. Some stranger was telling him that his brother was getting released from prison. And she had even known about it for weeks. His mom texted him every week sometimes more than that and it had never once come up. Not once, no one thought that he would want to know. No one thought about how he would feel about it. Which frankly, he wasn't exactly sure. A part of him was happy, but it mortified a part of him of being stuck back under a rock again as the lesser echo.

"Caspian's coming home?" he asked, trying not to let his feelings show.

"Yes, isn't it wonderful, dear? He will stay in his old room, and he will start work for your father immediately, he will probably have lots of friends over again just like last time don't you think dad. Oh, I am so excited things will finally be lively around her again, dinners together around the table as a family with all of us will be so nice." His mom rambled nervously off like a chittering bird.

"Stop… Just stop it, Mom." Leo hissed.

"How can you guys be sitting there talking about this like he went on vacation? He is getting out of prison. And how his sentence isn't even up." Leo asked his voice lilting from the betrayal.

'It was happening again. They were leaving him out of things, deeming it unnecessary to tell him.'

"He is getting out on good behavior. He will only have to wear an ankle monitor." His mom said slightly quieter that frantic trill went from her voice.

"So he isn't going to work at dad's firm, he will be babysat at dads firm for the remainder of his four-year sentence, and what the rest of the time he will just be confined here, so it will be all Caspian all the time, all his friends traversing through here destroying the house, forcing you to do twice the work again without a single word of thanks? Why does it have to be here? Can't he get an apartment? He is a grown man."

"He needs us right now, Leo, and we want him here. Why would we send him away?" His dad said, sniffling a little.

"Do we?"

"Because no one ever asked me how I felt about anything, how I felt about him ruining all our lives. How it felt when the whole world took their anger from him out on me, because he wasn't available. No one asked why the lady whose life he ruined stopped coming by here. Or found out that I visit with her every month to make sure she is doing okay after what Caspian did to her dad. They fired him after all that. He ruined lives, and now he is getting out and good behavior, and what we paid a little money and now it will all go away. What about the fact that he should be reasonable and learn to make his own way now so he doesn't just keep screwing up repeatedly? No, you wanted your trophy son back, because even if he is a thief that's still a better son than the barely adequate one who can't speak up for himself, has trouble talking to people and won't go out with any girl you throw at him, cause guess what he is gay, and we all know how you feel about that. Us disgusting Gay's." Leo sniffled, then raised a hand and wiped away the tears that had fallen down his face as he ranted.

"Oh, honey," his mom stood up, her face crushed for him, but her eyes darted at Mia. And he could tell how embarrassed they must be feeling. Normally he would care, normally he would try to do everything he could to make everyone happy. But he just couldn't tonight. No one had cared about his feelings at all.

"What did you say?" His dad interrupted standing up slowly.

"Yeah I said it, I know how you feel, where your politics stand, that's why I could never say what has been hiding in my heart for the past few years, what I wanted to say but could never say. Why because I was dying to hold on to the little approval I had. I clung to it like it was my sail to help me get through life.

"But if you guys can't even take one minute to fill me in on something as big as this, why should I fill you in on any of my decisions. You knew for over a month and you said nothing." Leo's voice cracked again.

"Don't worry I won't spend anymore time messing up your carefully planned dinner. I can see myself out."

"Mia, it was really great meeting you, but you should maybe try for Caspian. You seem like his type."

Leo said he went for the door, grabbed his bag, slipped his feet into his shoes, and walked out the door before anyone could get to him.

The door slammed on his mother's calls for him. Leo walked down the sidewalk to the dark street and walked down to the nearest bus stop. After a minute of walking, he got there just in time as the next bus pulled up. He got onto it not even mattering which way it was heading and walked somberly to the back of the bus, taking a seat at the far left. He plopped into it with a heavy sigh and stared out past the window; the bus lurched forward and the world sped past falling away behind him unfocused.

'Fan freaking tastic. I didn't even get to try what was under the lid.' Leo berated himself for forgetting to ask about it.