Ava's POV
I had been stalling. I felt like Stella, not wanting to go home. She said she'd come with me if I wanted, but something about this homecoming felt like it was something I needed to do by myself. We got into New York late and crashed at Aunt May's house. Stella tried to tell me to go home right away, but I insisted I was so tired I needed to sleep as soon as possible. She saw right through my lie, but it's not like she could drag me to our old apartment building. So the next morning Aunt May and I made French toast and I stalled a little bit more before Stella basically kicked me out. It seemed like she was a lot more concerned about Christian than I was, but I knew what this was. She had a brother that loved her more than anything in the world and she wanted that for me too. I didn't pretend to believe that talking to Christian would change anything, but maybe my running away to LA and never being seen again was a little dramatic. I mean my brothers weren't that bad. They could've been a lot worse.
I got to the apartment and unlocked it with the key that Stella tore apart my room that morning to find. Inside, the place was a wreck. Beer cans, pizza boxes, dirty dishes... I didn't even want to look too hard for fear that there were rats.
"Christian? Paul?" I called into the house. No answer. I didn't know their sleeping habits or anything, but I was of the mind that if I was awake, they should be awake too, and if they were they were probably out doing whatever it was that they did during the day time. I didn't know what to do. I came here to talk to Christian. If Christian wasn't here, what was I supposed to do? I peeked in Abuela's room and saw Paul asleep in the bed. I had yelled for him when I came in, but he could sleep through a nuclear war. I hadn't been in here since she died and what struck me was that even though Paul had moved all his shit in here like 30 seconds after the lizard attack, it still looked shocking like Abuela's room. It could've been that he just never redecorated but I mean... he still had the framed photos of us on the nightstand, frozen in time at 12, 10 and 7. And even though the rest of the apartment looked like a bomb went off, Abuela's room was clean, aside from a pile of laundry in the corner. It was like... maybe he hadn't come here because he was sick of sharing a room with Christian. Maybe he had come here because it was where Abuela was.
I shut the door silently.
If Paul was home, Christian probably was too. I peeked into his room.
He wasn't in there.
I had only seen glimpses of this room as a kid. I used to make snacks and lunch for the three of us to share, always wanting to take care them, but they always kicked me out, taking the food I had made with them. I knew enough to know the room originally had two twin beds smash up against either wall, but now it had a full size bed in the middle. He had a flat screen TV and some fancy X Box like Louis had in his game room still on top of a bookshelf that was packed with books about engineering. I didn't even know Christian could read, and all of sudden his room looked like Peter's. Next to the bookshelf was a small desk, covered in half empty water bottles and soda cans, open chip bags, dirty clothes, but on top of the desk stood a bulletin board. Covered in little homemade cards that said "happy birthday Christian! love, Ava" the spelling not great on most of them. They were mostly all the same, the artist talent of them improving as years went on. Almost all of them were just a drawing of me, Christian and Lucky, my pink stuffed frog.
"Why are you in my room?" I heard. I jumped. Christian was standing in the doorway.
"I..." I looked down. How did I even get in here? All I had intended on doing was peeking my head in to check to see if he was here. I had evidently gotten off track.
"I'm sorry." I blurted, feeling prickles on my skin like I was scared. What did I have to be afraid of? Christian had never hurt me.
"I didn't know you were in town." He said, when I didn't move from my spot in front of his desk.
