sʜᴀᴛᴛᴇʀᴇᴅ

O N E

Andrew

I was signed out of the hospital today. My dad picked me up, so happy for me to be awake and alive, even though I'll be needing leg therapy to get my legs in better condition after not using them for a little over two years. That part was annoying, but at least I wasn't still unconscious—that was a good thing, right? Anyway, I can move and feel my legs—sure, but for now, I've been using a wheel chair until I'm at better strength. So I'm not paralyzed, just extremely weak.

In the car ride—which gave me a slight fear, but I tried brushing it off as best as I could manage, my dad talked about what's changed since I've been in a coma—starting with his brand new wife—making her my stepmom. Das told me that her name was Veronica. If I was being honest, I was kind of bitter about him replacing mom with this random lady after only two years, but my dad deserved to be happy more than anyone after losing the love of his life. I miss and am devastated over my mom's passing, of course, but Veronica sounds like a good person, according to my father, at least.

Then, he mentioned that Veronica has five sons, all older than me, making them my older stepbrothers. And that she had a set of twins as well, Justin and Jason, and her youngest son, who was named Ryder, is in the same grade as me, so I was hoping to be great friends with him.

Thinking about making friends with my stepbrother brought another thought into my head. I hope Elliot, Jackson and Michael are still friends and together, especially at the same school, since my dad had told me instead of the behavior school I was previously attending, I'll be going to that school when I'm able to. Which I was completely looking forward to. That was also Alexa's school, if I recall correctly.

Thinking about Alexa, a feeling crept inside me as Dad continued talking about all of the changes in his life. Not once since I've been awake, have I heard anything about my sister. Not even now, with all the talking my dad was doing. He has yet to mention anything about Alexa. Why would that be? I was almost too afraid to ask.

I looked over at my dad. He was driving, staring ahead at the road, hands on the steering wheel, talking nonstop. Mentioning anything and everything except his own daughter.

My twin sister.

"Dad," I interrupted. "How's Alexa doing? Has she been okay without me?"

Dad sighed. "Yeah, your sister's been fine. She's actually at a boarding school right now and couldn't be here to see you; thought that was very rude of her. But I'm sure she had her reasons."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Did my own twin sister, my very best friend, not even care that I didn't die in that coma? Couldn't she have at least called home or something? Wouldn't she have wanted to talk to me?

I tried not to be to upset about it. I'll eventually just ask Alexa and hear her side of the story before jumping to any conclusions. Still though, I want to see my sister; I want to talk to her and hug her.

"We're here," Dad says, stopping the car at a driveway of a huge house. I gasped at the sight. Wow.

My dad got out and grabbed the wheelchair from the trunk and unfolded it. I opened my door and my dad helped me into the wheelchair, then he rolled me to the front door and opened it. The inside was marvelous.

A clearly pregnant lady was waiting at the entrance. She beamed when she saw us. "Well, hi! I'm Veronica, and your must be Andrew!" she says, bending down and engulfing me into a hug. So this is my stepmom? Then she gets up and gives my dad a kiss. I scrunch my nose up in disgust.

"Andrew, would you like to meet your stepbrothers?" Veronica looked down and asked me.

I nodded. Was 'no' even an option? Meeting new family just seemed a bit weird since I haven't even reunited with my own twin sister yet.

Dad chuckled. "Glad to have you back, son. I'm going to get things out of the car." Then he walked out of the front door.

Veronica smiled and then yelled out, "Boys! Come down here right now or everyone is grounded!"

Woah.

I heard footsteps coming from the stairs and five boys came down them, agitation and annoyance written all over their faces. All at once, they noticed me and the two oldest boys faces soften.

"Is this him?" one of them asked.

Veronica nodded. "Yep, this is Andrew," she confirmed. "Now all of you introduce yourselves to him right this instant, please."

"I'm Zach," the oldest said.

"Cameron," the tallest told me.

"He's Jason," thing 1 says.

"And he's Justin," thing 2 says.

"Ryder," the youngest concluded.

They didn't seem to be in a very chatty moods, only giving me their names. It was obvious something was on their mind, so I simply said, "Nice to meet all of you, hope we can be great brothers." I didn't want to upset them or have a bad first impression.

"Yeah, yeah," Ryder said impatiently, looking at his mom. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah," Zach says. "I was in the middle of making more posters for Alexa."

Huh?

"Why?" Jason questioned. "There's no way she's still alive."

"Her body still deserves to be found!" Zach shouts.

"Everybody just shut the hell up," Cameron says.

Wait, what the fuck did they just say?

"What happened while I was gone?" I said firmly, everyone staring at me.

"Oh sweetie.." Veronica said.

"Wait, you don't know?" Justin says.

"Know what?" I said, fearing the worse.

"Your sister is most likely dead," Zach tells me softly.

Excuse me?