Truly Free // COMPLETED

28. Don't Give Up

"I'll miss you guys! You need to come up one weekend and we'll do something fun," Aaron says, climbing into his truck to leave. We're out of school today for a teacher work day, but he's leaving to get home to his family. We had a good time last night and no one came banging on my front door this morning, so I'm assuming whoever woke up last night didn't know it was us that rolled their house.

"We'll miss you too. Yeah, we'll see if we can come up soon," Gray replies. It's been a great weekend, but I'm ready to just slow down and get prepared for school in the morning. Aaron starts up the truck and we step back to watch him leave out of Gray's driveway and out of the neighborhood.

I go back to my house and Gray follows me. I feel bad that he has to watch his friend leave, not knowing when he'll see him next. He looks pretty sad, so I stop him before we reach my front door and hug him.

"Hey."

"Hi."

"You okay?"

"I'll be fine."

"You sure?"

"Positive. I love you."

"I love you, too," I smile against his chest. We pull away and enter the house, but when we walk in there's yelling from upstairs.

"What are you talking about? It's been a little over a week and you're trying to get rid of every trace of him!"

"Well sorry that I can't even look at our own daughter let alone his room without thinking about him!"

I run upstairs to see my parents in the doorway of Andrew's room that we kept for when he visited. Oh God.

"You can't just decide you want to get rid of his things when we've barely had time to process what happened," my dad yells at my mom.

"Addison seems to be just fine! Running around town with her friends doing who knows what," my mom fires back. They notice me at the top of the stairs. By this time, Gray has joined me up here and has heard everything they've said. I've had enough of this. They don't know how I feel or what I'm thinking.

"I only go out to leave this house! They're distracting me, mom. I can't stand being here while dad's trying to hold you together, so I just leave! You wouldn't know how I feel about this, you just sit up in your bed and do nothing! Dad's at least trying to help. The only reason I'm not a crying depressed mess in front of you is because of Gray. So don't say that I don't care, I'm just pretty good at hiding it."

With that I storm down the stairs, ready to leave. I grab my keys off the counter, but Gray stops me.

"Nope. You're upset. If you wanna leave, I'm driving."

I concede and we rush out the front door, as soon as I step out of the house, the tears start flowing. I'm hurt and sad and I want to talk to someone about it and I want it to be Gray. He dashes inside his house, leaving the front door wide open.

"Mom! I'm leaving with Addy," he shouts and rushes back out, slamming the door behind him. We walk together to the garage where he keeps his precious truck, his hand on my back the whole way. Once we're in and out of the subdivision he turns to me.

"Where are we going and what are we doing?" he asks sweetly.

"Food."

He nods and drives to a drive-in place he knows I like. We arrive and park in a space. We order some tater tots and two cherry limeades and wait for our food to come out. I need to get this off my chest right now.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"I just don't get it," I sigh.

"Get what?"

"I don't understand how she thinks I'm fine with all of this. My only brother fucking died, how the hell would I be okay! I try to look and act alright, but that's all for her! I feel like if I cry in front of her she'll break down, but she's ready to start throwing out all Andrew's stuff," I cry out, waving my hands everywhere. Gray takes initiative and folds up the center console so he can scoot over towards me.

"The only reason I'm remotely okay is because of you," I continue. "You keep me out of that awful house and away from my distant parents-"

I'm cut off by a guy from our school coming out on roller skates with our order. Gray hands him some money and as soon as he gets his change back and our meal, he gestures for me to continue.

"They haven't talked about him at all, Gray. They act like he never even existed and it hasn't even been long at all since the accident! Not once have they asked me how I feel or what I'm thinking or if I'm okay," I slouch against the window.

"Well how do you feel?" Gray asked in all seriousness. I take a minute to wrangle in my thoughts.

"I feel...purposeless. Every single day it was the same. Wake up, call or text Andrew. Get ready for bed, call or text Andrew. If I was out by myself, we'd meet up for lunch. Then you moved in and I still called him every day. We've gone by and seen him and now he's gone and the girl he was supposed to marry got left behind and I haven't heard from her and sometimes I wake up and find myself texting him, expecting a reply but when nothing comes I remember that he's gone."

"Addison, that doesn't make you purposeless. There are plenty of people in your life that care about you. Even if your parents are distant, that's normal and they'll snap out of it. If you're ever upset, you know you can come to my house any time you want. My mom would love for you to spend some time with her, she's had a hard time making friends, you know? Don't give up on finding your purpose."

"I won't, I promise."