If Only

Chapter 22

Austin's POV

I am woken up the nextmorning by the sound of the front door opening and closing. I get up out of bedand make my way downstairs to see that neither Katie or Jonathan are in thedorm, but as I walk into the kitchen I see a note on the table in Katie's handwriting. 'Boo, Jonathan and I are going out for breakfast, see you latertonight.' I place the note back on the table as I make my morning coffee andturn on the TV in the living room to hear what craziness is going on in theworld today. After about an hour I am now fully awake and I have done a lotalready this morning, I have done my morning routine, cleaned the whole dormroom, and got all the laundry caught up and folded. 

Oncethat is done I wander back up to my room and start getting dressed for my daywhich starts with history class with Mr. Orson today, I dress myself in a darkcolored denim jacket, a white vest under the jacket, dark colored blue jeans,and a pair of sneakers that look brand new but a few years old. I admire myselfin the mirror making sure that I look good before stepping out in publicbecause one of things that my parents drilled into my head when I was littlewas that when you go outside you are representing this family and representingyourself. I take a deep breath as I walk to my bed and gather up my stuff andwalk downstairs and out the door heading to campus so that I could meet up witha friend of mine that I always make time for no matter how busy I am. 

I wanderaround campus looking for this friend and I soon find him leaning against atree looking up at sky eating an apple, his dark brown is mostly covered by theblue backwards hat on his head, he has a dark blue tank top on, a pair oflightly washed and faded blue jeans, and white shoes on his feet. "Hey Eric." Isay walking up to him giving him a huge smile and Eric smiles a big smile at meas two us do our secret handshake. "I hope I didn't wake you up to early?" Ishake my head as the two of us start walking, "No, I was already up when I gotyour text that you wanted to meet up." Eric starts scratching his neck with anervous look on his face for some reason. "What about you?" I ask looking atEric who sort of starts relaxing a little bit, "You know me I am always on thego, but I always make sure to take time out of my life for my friends andfamily." I nod my head because like me Eric knows that nothing is moreimportant than family and when it comes to our friends we would drop everythingwe are doing if they really needed us. "How far on you on your Englishassignment?" Eric asks me lightly bumping my shoulder snapping me out of mythoughts. "I have to say that I haven't read as much of that book as of late, Ihave so many other books that I am reading." I can't believe that I have letmyself get side tracked like I have.

"Youare stretching your brain to thin, it is something that I noticed that you dotoo much." I look at Eric and I suddenly reminder the night of frat party andwho I ran into that night on my way back to my dorm room. "By the way I raninto your brother Aiden a while back." Eric looks at me with surprise. "Ihaven't seen Aiden in weeks, but at least I know that he is alive." It alwaysgets to me how Aiden seems to appear and vanish at will, one moment he iswalking around campus like everyone else and then the next moment he vanishesand you don't see him weeks on end. "Aiden might not show up all the time butif you look at his grades he has all straight A's and a GPA of 4.0" This catchesme by complete surprised to hear that Aiden is that good of a student when Ihave never seen not once in an actual classroom. "Are you sure about that?" Iask trying to sound as nice I could because I don't mean to be nasty about it, 

"Yeah,Aiden is almost as good as you are Austin." This makes me feel a littledepressed because I study my ass off to keep up my grades and my GPA but then Ihear that someone like Aiden makes it look effortless. "Everything has alwayscome easy to Aiden, he wants to learn something and he learns in a week, hewants to travel some place and he somehow raises the money for his trip in notime, and he breezes by in all his classes that he is so head, which is why hedoesn't bother show up." I nod my head because this is the first time that I amhearing anything about Aiden and it coming from Eric is a first too becauseEric doesn't talk about Aiden a lot. From what Eric has said about his twinbrother it sounds like Aiden is considered the black sheep of the Knightfamily.

My phonesuddenly goes off and I pull it out of my pocket to see that I have a new textfrom an unknown number. I unlock my phone and open the text message. 'Hey, it'sGarrett, meet me in the library' I read the text making sure that I am readingthis right but I quickly turn my phone off before Eric starts getting curious."I have to go Eric, I just remember that I have a library book on hold, and Ireally need to hurry before it is put back." Eric looks at me with a littlesadness in his eyes but he covers it up with a smile. "Alright, but we willcatch up later?" 

I nod my head smiling at him. "Of course." I give him one more small smile before walking off in the direction of the library and the whole way there I can't help but think of why Garrett would want to meet up a the library of all places on campus.