Learning to be Sister's [discontinued]

Anastasia Two

2.

            Two days after attending the house party Jonah had dragged Ana to, he finally answered her calls. Anastasia had been trying to contact him for the last couple of days and not once had he answered. It wasn’t until she was half way to his house that he answered her call.

            “What’s up?” Jonah asked into the other end of the phone.

            “Where the hell have you been?” Anastasia asked into the phone. She quickly reached out and lowered the volume on the radio.

            Ana heard Jonah sigh, “I’ve been busy, Ana. Is that the only reason you called me?”

            Shocked at Jonah’s curt and rude reply, Ana pulled the phone away from her ear to make sure she had called the right person. Her best friend never spoke to her the way he was now. Putting the phone back to her ear, Ana scoffed. “I advise you to check your tone, Jo. Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I’m not one of those little hoes who hang around you. You better recognize who you’re talking to.”

            Ignoring her, Jonah sighed, “Did you call me just to annoy me?”

            Ana rolled her eyes, “No, I actually called to give you a heads up.”

            “About?”

            Ana took a few seconds to reply as she parked her car on the edge of the street across Jonah’s house. Turning the key in the ignition, Ana slid the key out and grabbed her bag from the passenger seat. “I’m outside your house. Come greet me.”

            Hanging up, Anastasia slid out of her car and locked it behind her as she crossed the street and walked up Jonah’s driveway. Just as she bounded up the stairs, Jonah answered the door to his dark haired best friend.

            Dressed in a pair of light grey sweats and a green Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-Shirt, Jonah stepped aside and let Anastasia into his home. “What are you doing here?” he questioned her. “It’s Sunday.”

            Walking into his living room, Ana dropped her bag onto the couch and fell back onto it with a heavy sigh. “Can’t I just come over and visit my best friend?” she questioned with an innocent smile.

            Jonah sat on the opposite side of the couch and looked at her with a blank expression. “You live half an hour away, you hate driving, and you wouldn’t just drive out here for the heck of it.”

            “I was worried, ok? You haven’t answered my calls in days.”

            “I’ve been busy,” Jonah replied as he leaned forward and grabbed the TV remote. Turning it on, he sighed. The two of them remained quiet as they watched a rerun of Snack-Off on MTV.

            It wasn’t until a commercial came on that Jonah turned to his best friend. “Did you hook up with anybody at that party Friday night?” he asked.

            Anastasia glanced over at Jonah who was staring at her with an unreadable expression. “No.” she answered knowing perfectly well that if she told him she had slept with a random at a house party, he’d go nuts. He was overly protective of her and it bugged her. If any guy so much looked in her direction when they were hanging out in public, he’d make it clear that she wasn’t up for grabs even if it meant slapping her ass just so guys got the hint.

            Relief crossed his grey eyes, “Okay.” And just like that the topic was dropped.

            Later that night when Anastasia pulled into her driveway and entered her quiet home, she noticed a few brown boxes stacked up in her living room. She narrowed her eyes at the sight before running up to her bedroom on the second floor.

            Her father had been dating a woman from the next town over for the last year. She had only met her once, along with her daughter Azeala. They had conversed occasionly the night both families decided to have dinner together, Azeala was too busy texting away on her phone, and Anastasia was too busy trying to stop herself from stabbing herself in the eye.

            Now, a year into her father’s relationship with the women he was seeing, they decided that the next step in their relationship would be to move in together. At first, Ana wasn’t too thrilled about having two strange women live in her home. What a surprise it came to Ana when her father told her they were moving in with the Acero family.

            The only silver lining to the entire thing was that she was going to be living closer to Jonah.

            “Stace?” Ana’s father called from his study.

            Quietly sighing, Anastasia dropped her hand from her bedroom door knob and walked into her father’s study. He was putting his books into boxes.

            “Hey Dad,” Ana greeted as she leaned against the doorway.

            “How was Jonah?” he asked not looking in her direction.

            “Stomach flu,” she lied. “He ate some bad seafood.”

            “Oh,” Mike nodded and finally looked up at his daughter, “Is he feeling alright?”

            Ana nodded, “Yeah.” Standing up straight, Ana gave her father a small smile before speaking again, “I’m going to shower.”

            Ana was just about to open her bedroom door when her father called out her nickname again; this time he walked out into the hallway to speak to her. “I would like for you to start packing,” he began. “We’re moving this weekend.”