The New Guy

Same old with a hint of new

Matt's POV

I walked into my house greeted by yelling. So many days of peace, I forgot about the frequent fights Al gets into with Dad. A week is their record honestly.

I can understand why it happens though. Being adopted isn't easy especially when you're a teenager. Emotions love to play funny tricks too. Our emotions are a bit different considering the fact that we're adopted. Al, after a really bad fight with Dad, told me that he just doesn't think he could be understood given what's happened to us. And he has a point. No one can really truly understand the emotions we feel because of situation even if they have gone through something similar. It's hard. The fighting doesn't help. Nothing helps but trudging through but that's still hard.

It hurts me to see or hear them fight. I love them both. Thing is that Al never reacted quite well to the whole situation. I know deep down, he loves it, but the other emotions and angst get in the way. It hurts me more that this is when I see him most. He's always out doing something, having a life. While I'm stuck here waiting.

Anyway, I went upstairs, past their yelling, and flopped onto my bed, dropping everything I had on me. The closed door didn't muffle a thing.

"I hate you!"

Yep, not a single thing. I groaned and pushed myself back up. I could blast music but I'm not really in the mood for that. I could just straight up leave the house but then I would get yelled at for that. This house clearly has had too much yelling as it is. I could slip through the window onto the room but I'm not really feeling up to putting the effort to get out there. I could sleep but...

Guess I'll sleep.

"It's not like you're my real dad!"

God, Al, grow up.

"Fine then, if you hate me so much then leave!"

The window was starting to look a lot more appealing.

"I am!"

I heard a door slam shut right then. In panic, I near fell off my bed and scurried to the window. I was lucky that I could see the front lawn from it. I saw Al standing on the side walk. The lamp post a few feet away let me see him. Probably deciding where to go. He looked up to my direction. I noticed he was on the phone.

My phone began to ring. I quickly picked it and saw that he was calling him. I answered and looked back out the window.

"Hey, Matt." He sounded sorry and I felt sorry for him. "Sorry you had to hear all that."

"It's fine." I blurted out without much thought. I heard him chuckle a bit.

"Always so forgiving...." He sighed. "Listen," His voice grew said. It was depressing. "Comfort dad for me, will you?"

"Where are you going?"

"I'm not going anywhere, I'm just going to sit here but I can't really go inside now, can I?"

"Makes sense."

"Now go, please." He hung up. I remembered the window and saw he was holding up a thumbs up. He dropped his and sat down on the side walk.

I guess sleep will have to wait.

~

I headed downstairs and found dad pacing back and forth in the living room mumbling to himself.

"What was the fighting about?" He didn't hear me. I know he didn't by the way he kept going and going. "What was the fighting about?" I asked again, louder this time. He stopped this time and looked at me. His rigid expression drastically softened. I'll admit that I'm the one he likes more. He trusts me more anyway.

"Your brother...does he even enjoy living here?"

"He does, he really does. He's just not good at expressing it."

"Then it has to be me he hates."

"He doesn't hate you either." I sighed. "It's just hard for us, you know. Adjusting is weird and being a teenager doesn't help."

"I suppose you're right." He sat down in his classic recliner with a groan. "It's been over a year and a half, is it really that hard to adjust?"

"I'm not sure." I sat on the sofa. "Sometimes I think there's something wrong with him, screwing with him."

He groaned again, "And here I was thinking that I would be able to tell him the great news. Guess that will have to wait."

"What news?" That really caught my attention. This was a very usual conversation but he never mentioned anything like that.

"I-" The phone rang, interrupting him. He groaned once again as he got up. "Give me a moment." He walked out of the room.

He came back about ten minutes later. It felt like an hour with the haunting silence. Al texted me at one point asking if it was fine to come back in. I was just about to type out my answer when dad came back into the room.

"So," He was much happier now. Probably got a pep talk from that guy he constantly talks to. "Francis is coming to live with us."

"Oh."