Chapter Ten - Aaron
Right from the moment where Henry mentioned the news, Aaron knew he should have shut Henry up. In the weeks that he had had gotten to know Henry's little sister, Aaron knew that pressuring her into talking about certain topics would only cause chaos; for instance, the discrimination thing, Cat had run off.
After comforting Cat, he made his way to Henry's room. The door creaked open, in which caused Henry to immediately turn his head towards him.
"Erm, hey..." Aaron began, scruffing up his hair.
Henry's eyes narrowed, glaring at the blonde haired boy. His hands held a soft ball, one of those that was easily squashed and as Aaron sat beside Henry, his hands squeezed it more repetitively.
"What took you so long?" He spat, making Aaron flinch. There was a certain tone to his voice - a shade between slightly angry and absolutely fuming - but to Aaron, it wasn't new.
Taking a deep breath, he chose to reply, "have you taken your meds?"
A sudden throw of the squishy ball widened Aaron's eyes, with his body quickly dodging it. It was a mistake for him to ask that question straight away. After all, Henry was pretty temperamental at the current moment.
"Okay, I'm sorry!" Aaron fumbled round the rooms, searching for the medication. Each drawer was either full of clothes or full of school stuff and what made it even harder was Henry's little tantrum over the whole argument. He had definitely messed up his room since the last time he had this problem, with stationery scattered around the drawers.
Finally spotting the white tub of pills, he lifted them up, analysing the label to check if they were correct.
"I don't get it," Henry began, "why does she not see her potential? I want to help her but she won't let me."
Aaron grabbed the bottle of water on the bedside drawer as he pulled out the number of tablets Henry had to take. He was the only one who knew about Henry's little secret, especially with their mum caring more for Cat (as Henry had told him).
"I know you do," Aaron replied. He didn't know what else to say.
Henry swallowed down the pills with a gulp of water, falling onto his bed with a thump. The wretched narrow breathing began to calm down, with the replacement of slow, deep breaths. It wasn't the effect of the pills as Aaron had experienced this a lot: once Henry had taken the pills, he just felt ever so slightly calmer.
"I want her to be happy."
Out of the all the things Aaron had learnt during his years growing up, that had stuck into his mind the most. It was the reason behind everything Henry did, the reason why he was in such a bad way at times. It should have made Aaron hate Cat but for some reason, he couldn't. He was incapable of hating people.
"I know you do but you can't force her to do anything. She wants the same for you," he told Henry.
The words he said were foreign in his mouth - he had defended her. After watching what she had done to her own brother, Aaron still defended her. It confused him.
He believed that he thought of Cat as his own sister, something he never had whilst growing up. Then again, Henry was practically his brother, so for him to just turn towards Cat made Aaron wonder what was really happening to him. Lost in thoughts, he almost didn't hear Henry wondering the exact same thing.
He hadn't felt this way about a girl before; he hadn't felt anything about a girl before. Cat was his friend and usually, Aaron never got more than a 'hi and bye' from one. Something about her made him want to go up to her, to talk to her. Cat Evangeline was different from girls he had observed before. Taking Violet for an example, Aaron had noticed how focused on appearance they were, barely eating anything to maintain that certain figure they want. Cat, on the other hand, wasn't like that: her blindness had prevented her from even thinking about that and for some reason, Aaron liked that. A lot.
