My cousin and I have had a close relationship for most of my lifetime. Prior to my birth, he would regularly sleep over at my parent’s house to receive forbidden sweets. After I was born, he would sleep over to watch over a newly born me. His continued protection over my life deepened as we got older, and he was there for me whenever I needed. I would see him every weekend at our family gatherings where we would play basketball or video games. In short, he was my best friend.
Our relationship continued into high school; my cousin knew all the details of my life such as how school was going, my bullies, and my crushes. It was not till a weekend in the Summer going into my Sophomore …show more content…
I would frame my concern to a parent with a higher authority, not as the illegality but rather as my uncomfortableness. However, I quickly realized that regardless in the way I frame the concern, my cousin would not be pleased that I told a parent about his activities. Some of the benefits for this certain course of action included: diminishing risk of driving under the influence, health risk that could have arisen for my cousin, any second-half smoking consequences that could have occurred to me. On the other hand, my long-lasting relationship with my cousin would be severed. Furthermore, due to my family’s dynamic, my parent’s cousin would refuse to believe that their son could do such an act and would turn into an argument with solely …show more content…
Unlike doing nothing, this course of action would be proactively trying to avoid finding myself in situations around my cousin and his car. He would still be driving under the influence and putting others’ lives in danger, but the key difference would be that it would not be my life at stake. It would also mean there would be no threat of my secrets being exposed by my cousin since our relationship was diminishing but still based on trust. Although I would still be forced into situations where I would have to deal with my cousin smoking weed, it would be uncommon and limit my exposure to my