Family: Anthony

Many of Kayleigh friends might not know this, but Kayleigh has an older half-brother Anthony. Kayleigh saw Anthony every second weekend from when she was born up until a couple of years ago. as you would expect half-siblings that don't live with each other are bound to clash, especially when they are both eldest children - although Kayleighs personality was much stronger than Anthonys in the end so she definitely ruled the kids here.

As children Kayleigh really worshipped Anthony - the cooler big brother that she saw when he came over - he is 4 years older than Kayleigh. She got to play all the games that he wanted to play and since he was bigger she could play fight with him, which she couldn't do with her younger siblings.

As they got older, the dynamic changed. Anthony really didn't like visiting much and Kayleigh took it personally and also took offense that he didn't want to visit her dad and mum (she was very loyal). Several times she asked anthony outright why he didn't want to visit and he never gave her an answer she was happy with. When Anthony reached 15 we gave him the choice whether he wanted to visit and he chose not to except occasionally when it suited him. He was a typical teenager by that stage and started smoking and drinking - which Kayleigh found completely disgusting. Kayleigh mentioned to me that she though he was an idiot for smoking and not looking after himself.

I think to final thing that really got to Kayleigh with Anthony was something that happened when Kayleigh was in Year 7. Anthony was seeing a girl that went to calwell high and one day was hanging around with his friends waiting to see her at lunchtime. They got bored and broke into the bike racks and vandalised a couple of bikes, The one that Anthony decided to damage happened to be Kayleighs (although he didn't know it at the time). When Kayleigh finished for the day she found her seat pulled off and her tyres flat and the pedals half undone. She had to walk her bike home. As Kayleigh had seen Anthony hanging around a couple of times before, Terence called Anthony and asked him if a couple of his friends had been at the school that day and damaged some bikes. He muffed around and didn't answer. We saw his mother a couple of days later and she mentioned that Anthony was really pissed with himself because he'd damaged his sisters bike.

Kayleigh never really saw Anthony after that - she did love him in a way - he was her brother - but the things he did did not meet up with her way of thinking.