Another City Of Lights.

Chapter 16.

Aaron's POV:-

It was 6am, and the shower was cold. It wasn't freezing cold, and not that cold that it hurt, but it was colder than it mostly was. Normally, whenever I could squeeze in the time for a quick wash, I was always greeted by scorching hot water on my back. But I had found a way around it. If I managed to wake up just after sunrise, the water wasn't that bad, it wasn't boiling up in the tank all day and it was sort of cold. But waking up was the hard part, considering I went to bed after 3 almost every other day.

I switched the water off, and got out to find something to wear. There wasn't anything in my closet, and nothing but yesterday's clothes scattered on my floor. My mother, God bless her, still did my laundry, but she was a bit late this time I guess. I pulled out a faded shirt from my brother's junk, and decided to borrow it. He wouldn't notice anyway, considering he was in Canada after all.
He great prodigy, my brother. The favourite son. Never had to work a day in his life, and now he's in Canada, wasting all the money I bust my ass to put on the table.

I have a routine. Although I can't believe that someone like me could ever have a routine, but I have a routine.
College, work, tutoring, home.
What a great routine it is indeed.
Dash occasionally accompanies me in this routine, sleeping his way through class, or helping himself to my fridge while I tutor in the other room.
It's not a bad gig. I need the money to pay my way through college, and even though it's a drag to hang out with obnoxious kids half the day, it still pays well.
Dash works too, but his is only part time. He works Wednesday to Friday, at his dad's office. And Hailey, well she works too, from her room. She recently started a fashion blog and shit like that, and according to her, it's going good.

Neither of us have heard from Sam. None of us even knew she left this shithole, until one day when I had to literally camp outside of her house until her parents came to tell me to piss off. She wouldn't answer her phone, and it was like she disappeared. Which she really did, in the end. Her mother eventually came out, quite reluctantly, and spat at me that Sam was gone. That she had been gone for a long time.

I always knew she would leave. That girl had her mind set on leaving. But never in my wildest dreams could I have ever predicted this. I don't think anyone could have.
At first, I was all denial. And then it was anger, frustration. I couldn't understand how she could just pack up and leave and ditch her own family like the way she did. I couldn't understand how she could leave us, without even telling us about it.
And then there was a time when I thought maybe if I knew what was happening with her, I could have helped her. God, I wish I could have helped her.

After a period of two weeks of me sulking, Hailey crying, and Dash's silent treatment, we all went back to our lives. There wasn't much we could do anyway.
And now, no one mentioned her, no one talked about her, and it's like we were all trying to move around the problem, rather than to talk about it.

And somehow that was okay. Because I didn't think that anyone of us could actually talk about it, so it was better to just leave it and move on.

Although moving on wasn't so easy, it was never so easy, I had been trying for years now and I hadn't moved an inch so far.