Forever And A Half

43

Week 6:

We walked through the door of the foreign house. The walls were plastered with photos of young boys. I figured it was Oli's younger brother in the photo with him,

"Happy birthday!" Joe and I called as Oli turned the corner. I handed him the present and he thanked us as he opened it.

"Oh my god!" he screamed, "How did you know? I've wanted one of these for ages," he exclaimed. I smiled, happy that he'd liked the gift. He took us to his bedroom and the photos continued to follow us.

"Do you have a younger brother?" I finally asked. He nodded,

"Yeah that's James," he led us through the door. His room was quite clean and Caspar was spread on the bed. He sat up when we came in,

"Hey," he gave us both a friendly smile. Oli put his gift on his desk and we all sat on the double bed.

"So how old is James?" I asked. I was really curious because I hadn't known that Oli had a little brother.

"He's five," I looked around his room. Various trophies, photos and awards were stacked on some shelves. A door led away to a place that was unknown to me. His room was quite quaint. It was a typical boy's room with posters plastered on the pale walls. I spotted a close up of James,

"He doesn't really look like you," I commented. He really didn't seem to look like Oli at all,

"He's adopted, that's why," Oli didn't seem too worried, it was as though it were a daily thing for him to explain. I nodded. It made me seem really dumb,

"So what does the birthday boy want to do?" Caspar jumped into the conversation. Oli shrugged,

"We could go to the skate park," Joe suggested. Oli seemed excited by this and gabbed his board. Caspar ran to his home to get his skateboard and so did Joe. I waited with Oli and he gave me James' board to borrow. We walked down the street to the skate park.

"So how have things been with Joe?" he asked. I shrugged,

"They've been pretty good but he doesn't want me to leave," I explained. It was really sweet that he didn't want me leaving but it also left me in a state of confusion. I had to go home but now that he mentioned it, I didn't want to go either. I gave a loud groan,

"What's up," Oli turned to me. We entered the gates to the skate park.

"Well now that I think about it, I want to stay," I explain. Oli nods and the guys wave from across the half-pipe.

"That's kind of a hard situation," I rolled my eyes. Joe and Caspar both got up to greet us so Oli and I stopped our conversation. After a brief talk, the boys rolled to the half-pipe and started doing some basic tricks. I had no clue what they were doing so I decided to skate around the park instead. I rolled in circles for a while,

"Hey, you're Adalyn right?" I turned back and saw a boy skating towards me,

"Yeah, hi. Have we met?" the boy seemed around my age and quite familiar. He had tanned skin and light brown hair with blue eyes. We both stopped our boards and sat on a bench.

"We have, I'm Alex," I raised an eyebrow. The name didn't really ring a bell, "David's friend?"

"Ohh! Right, sorry. It was a while ago," I laughed, quite embarrassed.

"It's fine. We didn't really speak," he laughed it off. We had a short conversation about things between Joe and me.

"David was right, he did get a bit manipulative but it's alright now," he shrugged,

"Just don't let him know or he'll get a big head. By the way, I saw your YouTube channel,"

"Oh god, my first video was so embarrassing," he nodded.

"My first vine was pretty embarrassing," I pulled a pen from my pocket,

"Spill the details," he wrote his vine name on my arm, "Your last name is Ernst?" he nodded. Joe called me over and I said goodbye to Alex.

"What time is it?" Joe asked. I checked my phone.

"It's one o'clock," I answered.

"We could do something else for a while," Caspar suggested and looked to Oli.

"Nah man. I'm so tired after that session. Plus I have to get back home or mum will kill me," I gave him back the board and he rode his home. Caspar rode his in the other direction so Joe and I were left to walk back home. He unlocked the door and turned the hall way light on. We both walked to the lounge room for a Netflix marathon.

"Mum?!"