Reunited and Stronger

Chapter 1 ~Adam~

~present~

"Here you go"

"Thank you Ms. Minnick, and here's the medication your doctor prescribed."

Smiling thankfully I gathered my belongings together from the lady and placed the pill bottle in my purse, "thanks, can't forget this can I?"

"Of course not. Just follow the doctors instructions and you should do fine"

"I hope, thank you." I give one final smile to the lady before I exited the building. As I walk back "home" I took a second to look at the scenery around me. It's been about 6 years since I moved to New York however I didn't want to live in the actual city. I asked my parents if we could just live a couple minutes away from it, not too far, not too close. The place was constantly busy and there was so much a girl with anxiety could take. It was a selfish request but I was thankful my parents agreed to it. As I approached the street I waved my hand signaling for a taxi. When one stops in front of me I quickly hurry inside and pull out a piece of paper with my address.

"Here please"

The driver just gives me a slight nod and starts driving to our destination. As I take in the buildings we were passing I felt my phone vibrate on my lap.

B- you're not on :(

Me- yeah sorry, I ran out of my medication so I needed to get more

B- okay. well I'll be on so call me when u get home

Me- got it

B- :D

I chuckle a little. Apparently I was focusing so much on the text that I didn't even notice how I was already in front of my house. As I got out I  gave the driver the money with an extra tip. Yeah I'm one of those people who tips, very rare.

"Thank you." I said to the driver.

Once again, he only gave me a slight nod and drove away. When I first moved here I quickly learned that cab drivers can be a hit or miss. Some can be really cool and even fun to talk to, others are crabby and are obviously in a bad mood, and others just really don't care and would rather just do their work and not associate themselves with their passenger. When I finally entered my house I let out a sigh of relief and went upstairs to place my medication in the medicine cabinet in my bathroom. Grabbing my papers from my bag I went back downstairs and placed them on the counter so my parents can see it. However I'm not sure when either one of them will see it. I wasn't even sure if my parents would be home tonight. Heck, I didn't even know if they'll be here this week.

Eager to get out of my uncomfortable day clothes I went to my room, grabbed a sweater, and a pair of shorts out of my closet and quickly put them on. Feeling more comfortable I took my laptop and sat it down on my bed so I can skype Adam. After about 3 rings he answers.

"Hey R" he says with a tired expression on his face.

"Hey B. What's got you tired?" It's actually pretty rare to see him tired. His endurance is pretty legendary. I remember when we were kids he ended up running two miles because apparently he thought we were only supposed to stop when we got tired. Heck, he could've probably gone further but when he saw how exhausted the rest of us were he stopped.

"Math, I got this test soon and people have been texting me non stop" he pulls out his phone to show me proof. My jaw dropped. So many notifications were popping up on his screen I didn't even get to read who they were from. A majority of them were messages that said "hey" or "wanna talk." They didn't even have names attached to them. Just digits so obviously these people who were texting him were not people B knew. I shook my head a little, snapping myself from the surprise and gave him a sympathetic smile.

"How'd they get your number?" Here's a fun fact about Adam, he DOES NOT just randomly give just anyone his number. The only people who even know it are strictly friends and family, and that's not a lot.

Adam just shrugs as he twirls his pencil around his hand. I should really learn how to do that. "Beats me, I'm tempted to just change my number."

As Adam completely ignores the massive amount of messages he was getting we started talking about each other's day and all that cliche stuff. Counting him, I only had 5 friends when I left California, and I gotta say, I miss them a lot. When I moved here I never really went to school. I only took online courses and was basically homeschooled. I sorta have general anxiety so I don't do well with big crowds. It wasn't really a big problem in California but now since I moved its gotten a little worse.

I never feel safe or calm here. Don't get me wrong, the place is beautiful and exciting but Im basically alone out here. Whenever I go outside I always have this feeling building up that makes me want to hide from everything. Once I get home I always skype with one of the 5 friends I have. Once I talk to one of them all the tension is gone and I felt better again. You can't imagine how glad I am to have friends like them. Some friends usually just drift apart when someone moves away, but not us. I hardly ever feel left out because they would always fill me in with all the drama and gossip going around. It's like I never left.

After about 3 hours of filling each other in with our lives Adam grabs his math analysis text book  and starts flipping through the pages.

"So I don't understand sections 2 and 3 and I basically gave up on chapter 25"

I chuckled a little as I got my pen and paper from my nightstand. This was one of the things me and Adam would do during our skype calls when we weren't talking about each other. I'd tutor him with stuff he didn't understand cause believe it or not, Adam really does care about his grades. I don't even need to know the people in his school to know what they think about Adam Cross.

To them, Adam Cross is the schools badass who doesn't give a shit about his grades. If you don't see him, he's probably in an empty room or something with some hot chick. He's, apparently, an alcoholic that smokes and goes to wild parties every night since he looks dead beat tired every damn day. Basically all that cliche bad boy stuff.

The real Adam Cross however couldn't be any more different. He's a quiet guy who values his friends and family more than anything else. He does care about his grades, he just doesn't brag about them like everybody else would. If he didn't care about them then we wouldn't be wasting time tutoring him on math. If you don't see him, he's most likely in the library reading with Josh and most defiantly not with some random chick. The place is barely used so of course no one knows whats really going on. He may play around sometimes but never during school days. Also, he does not smoke. Drink, occasionally, but never smoke. Lastly, he isn't tired because he goes to parties all the time. He's tired because he takes care of his brothers and studies his ass off all night.

That's the real Adam Cross. The one only a handful of people really knew, and I'm pretty lucky to be one of those people.

After I'm done explaining the problems to him he lets out a big sigh and slams his book closed. "Thanks, the teacher was going too fast and she barely cared whether or not we understand anything. She can be a real female dog sometimes."

I raised my eyebrows and laughed after he said that. "Female dog? Are the twins around?"

"Yeah, they're supposed to be asleep right now but can't take any chances."

I yawned "let's call it a night. You need to sleep."

He chuckles "more like you do, night R."

"Night B"