wildflower | cth

8.1 - family

"Lia?" Emily asked after knocking on my bedroom door.

"Yeah?" I replied before sitting up slowly in my bed. I was still half asleep and enjoying my saturday morning. "Is everything alright?"

"I think I have the results." She said softly as she walked in. She closed the door behind her again and sat down on the empty bed as my roommate stayed the night with her boyfriend. "Can you look first?" She asked and I gave her a nod before taking the letter. I opened it and quickly read through the text before letting out a sigh.

"There's a match." I replied and she nodded, she wasn't sure if she was happy about it or not. I just have to say the name and she'll know who her father is but she stayed silent and thought it through. "Even if I tell you, you don't have to do anything with it. I can tell Calum that there was no match if you don't want to know him."

"So it's not Calum?" She asked first and I shook my head. "Is he a good guy? Do you know anything about his family?"

"He is a great guy, but I know his father isn't in the picture anymore because he wasn't a good man. And I don't think he knows a lot about him either."

"So it's Ashton." She said as she looked up at me, I opened my mouth to speak but nothing came out. "He's the only one you know things about because of Sam and I know you talk to Ashton too sometimes. You wouldn't have known that his father -my father- wasn't a good man if it was anyone else."

"Ashton is a great guy and I think if you told him, he would gladly take you into his family or at least become a friend."

"Can you not tell anyone yet? I want to have time to think about this." She asked as she looked down at her hands, overwhelmed with the information. "I need time to decide if I want a brother or not."

"Ofcourse Emily. You get to decide what to do with this information." I replied before handing her back the letter. She gave me a nod before looking at the paper again, trying to make her brain register it.

"What do you know about Ashton?" She asked me after a while, he was a stranger to her.

"He's the same age as you so his parents must have already been together when it happened. He's a drummer and according to Sam he has a great voice too. He studies creative arts and his major is in music, he dreams of having his own music school one day and offer classes to kids who's parents can't afford it. He's a great man to Sam, always treats her with respect and watches rom-coms with us without ever complaining. They have been together for 5 years and he once said that she's the girl he wants to marry one day. Sam really speaks highly of him. He likes to act all tough and like nothing can touch him but I've seen him cry a little during a disney movie." I tried to list all the things I knew about Ashton, but I couldn't think of a single bad thing to say about him. "He knows that according to the rules we shouldn't talk, but when we're at Sam's he's always kind to me and we've had short conversations."

"He sounds like a good man."

"He's great Emily, I think out of all the guys there that could have been your brother, you got the best one." I reassured her and she smiled a little. "If you want me to tell him or if you decide that he can't know at all, just let me know. I'm here for you."

"You're really amazing Lia." She said with a smile and I smiled back at her, "when you just joined last year, I hated you so much. You were the new rich girl and you had all guys drooling over you." She let out a soft laugh and I watched her with a smile, she wasn't the only one that hated me at the start. "I was jealous I think."

"I got money and a good last name, but that's all. There's nothing to be jealous of." I said and she looked at me with kind eyes and a smile.

"Why do you use a different name? Because I know that's not your actual name but even our professors call you by that name."