FADED By:Roxyforever7(H.S.)

Chapter Two

"Arden wake up, we are finally home!" I slowly open my eyes as I get up and stretch, I look out the car window and see we are pulling up to my childhood home. I hear Lilia and my mother talking with excitement. I gather my stuff and as my mom parks the car, we get out. 

"There are my girls!" 

"Oh my god! Hey, there Aiden!" Lilia says and I turn around to see my brother coming out of the house followed by my dad. My brother Aiden is back home too for the summer before school starts again tomorrow. He hugs and smiles at Lilia, when he turns to me he frowns and opens his arm wide. I laugh softly and hug him, he picks me up and swings me around.

"Aiden! Stop, please!" I scream and everyone around me laughs, though I didn't find it funny. He laughs and lets me fall to the ground, he tries to help me up but I swat away his hand. 

"Welcome back sis, you are always a joy to have," Aiden says as he helps unload the car with my belongings. 

"Yeah right," I mumble as I go and hug my dad. 

"Aiden quit teasing your sister and help us get the bags inside, we have to get dinner ready." 

"Oh Mrs. Young, have you spoken to my mom yet?" Lilia asks, my mom looks at her and shakes her head no.

"Sorry honey, but your mom hasn't answered my calls." Lilia nods and heads inside. I look over at my mom and raise an eyebrow. "Don't look at me like that, I have called her, but she won't answer, I don't get how a parent forgets to answer their child. But what can I expect, she is a busy woman." Lilia's parents divorced when Lilia was in middle school, they would always bicker back and forth, and they would try to hide it from Lilia to avoid such a mess but it made it worse. Lilia hated being home and always spent her time with me. I didn't mind but I also felt bad for Lilia and would always invite her over. Her mother, Rose Martinez Wood was a pristine attorney who owned a law firm, Wood Law Firm. While her father, Angel Wood owned his own engineering companies. Both are busy parents who forgot about their daughter. 

"Yeah you're right, Ms.Wood will call when she's not busy." 

"Honey, don't bring it up just let her forget about it." I nod and we all go inside. We put on music and get dinner ready. As the night went by, I decided to head off to bed, so I decided to go shower first. As I was finishing up in the shower and my skincare I heard a knock on the door. I tell them to come in, and Aiden comes in.

"Hey, uh can we talk?" 

I raised an eyebrow, "You got a girl pregnant, I fucking knew it." 

"No shut up," he says as he smacks my arm, I laugh and tell him to continue. 

"No, so I'm not sure if Mom told you but-"

"But what Aiden, hurry up I need to finish my skincare and get ready for bed. I have work tomorrow morning and need to get back into my schedule."

"Oh my god, here you go again making everything about you, you know what forget it, fuck you," he says as he slams the door. I sigh and quickly finish my skincare, and walk out of the door only to jump scared by a shadow.

"Arden why didn't you let your brother finish talking?" he says, I sighed and allowed him to finish, "He has news for you and he made your mother and I promise we wouldn't say anything." 

"He was taking forever to finish, and I am tired." 

"Arden," he said in a stern voice, I nodded and headed towards Aiden's room. I knock and he tells me to go away,

"Aiden come on, I was only kidding what happened?"

He finally opens the door and leans against the door frame, "Okay so you know I go to the University of Michigan but I got a better offer at the University of Southern California." I look at him dumbfounded, no way. "And before you go on a bratty rant as you always do, Mom and Dad both support me in this. You know baseball is my sport and I have done this for so long so nothing you say can change this. Ah no-" I try to speak but he shuts me up, "No wait, I know you wanted to be the only one who attends but suck it up. It's a big school so we won't run into each other that much." I stand there and only then do I snap back into reality when I hear laughter. We both look at Lilia standing by my room, laughing.