I Hate Him... But Love Her...

Chapter 3:

The door swung open. 

"Hey, Uncle Lance! I got home early today!" Anna called. Lance quickly came from the master bathroom where he had been organizing the shelves. "I have to pick up Amira at around 4, so that means I have 2 hours to do whatever I want!" She giggled. 

"Did any of your friends get out to?" Lance chuckled. 

"Um, I only have one friend here and no, Cali is doing makeup work. I think I'm just going to read my book and maybe go for a walk to Heritage or McDonald's later to grab some food so that way I won't have to cook anything for myself." She stated while setting her bag by the door and taking off her shoes. 

"You know that we'd cook you food if you weren't so stubborn," he laughed. 

She looked up at him with a small scowl. "Don't spend your money on me. I can take care of myself and Amira." 

"I know you are well capable of doing that but it's nice to have family behind you," he said sadly while looking away. 

Anna walked past him into the kitchen. She grabbed an apple and went upstairs to her and Amira's room. 

Lance stood there a little bit hurt but he couldn't blame her for being so cold. Her parents did kick her out after all. He thought back to when he saw her that cold winter night huddled against the tree afraid for her own life. He decided to make her cookies while giving her some time to calm down. He heard music blaring from her room and could hear her faint singing. He could tell by the slight shaking of the house that she was jumping on the bed. He chuckled to himself. 

He began thinking to himself, "Man. it sure was good to be a kid back then. Blaring the rock music while the boys and I pretended to be famous singers. I was always Paul Stanley and they were the rest of the members of Kiss. Those were the good days..."  He sighed and pulled the cookies out of the oven. He sat them on a plate to cool meanwhile he thought about how he was going to ask. He knew the gist of what had happened between Anna and Andy but there were a lot of missing pieces. 

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Anna jumped and landed on her bed as her song ended. She was getting hungry. She got up to open the door but heard Lance heading up the stairs. She sat down and waited for him to knock. She heard the familiar soft knock. 

"Yeah? What's up?" She said allowing him to come in. 

"I wanted to apologize for earlier. I am just glad that we have you here," he looked down, "It has been so much better around here since you got here. After Ezra moved out we thought that we'd be alone for many years but then we got you. I'm just really glad that we have family here..." he trailed off. 

"I get it Uncle Lance but sometimes it seems as though you don't understand that Amira and I are a family of our own." She stood up. "But, anyway, I should head off. I'm headed to Heritage for food. Wanna come with?" 

He looked up and smiled slightly with a sad look in his eyes. "Sure." 

They gathered their things and started walking. 

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"So... Is it alright if you read us some pages of your journal? I would like to know more about what had happened that caused you to be out there in the cold like that," He sipped his sweet tea.

She looked down at her food. "Well... I don't see why not. There are some parts I want to leave out but I can read you some. Did you read the pages I left open today?" 

"Yeah," he said guiltily.

"It's okay. I wouldn't have left them open if I wasn't okay with people reading them. It was just those pages right?" 

"Of course, I wouldn't snoop through your journal like that." 

"Alrighty," She laughed. 

They continued eating their food, paid on separate tickets, and then went on their way to pick up Amira. 

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I hope you liked it... I've been really busy with work and my online courses. Also, my depression has gotten worse so my motivation for writing combined with writer's block has made this incredibly difficult to update. I am going to try to get the next chapter out as soon as I can. Thank you for bearing with me and I'm sorry it took so long.