Floating in the Abyss ✔️

Chapter 55

I pottered around my room, making my bed all neat with the blankets and pillows. I put all the drawing things from the other day back in their respective spots on my desk and then tackled the pile of clothes I'd been meaning to put away. Mum's deal was that she was more than happy to do all the washing, since she could just wash everyone's at once, but we have to put our own clothes away. I thought that was completely reasonable since she was looking after six kids. Even though she didn't work, she was always busy helping people out and doing some work for Dad. The least we could do was put our own clothes away.

Once I'd finished that, which took me longer than I'd expected since I had a lot of trouble folding some stuff, I moved onto my bathroom. It was fairly neat already, but I tidied up the last few things like putting my toothbrush back in the cup and hanging up my towel properly.

"Do you know where mum is?" I asked Austin as I walked out of my room. He was sitting watching some car racing show on the TV.

"Nope. Mum!" He hollered. I laughed quietly.

"Stop hollering at me Austin!"

"Ash needs you."

"What's up, honey?" She asked me, appearing at the bottom of the staircase. She always came so quickly.

"Be nice to her but not me." Austin grumbled, not loud enough for mum to hear.

"What time are Nana and Grandpa coming over?" I asked.

"4 o'clock."

"Okay. What are we having for dinner?"

"Asian buffet."

"Is that the one I picked up with Ryan?"

"Yeah. You can look at the menu this time." I tried not to show my slight disappointment. I didn't really like that food last time.

"We have to get takeaway each time Nana and Grandpa come over." Austin explained, once mum had left.

"Why?"

"Nana can be kind of controlling...you could say." He laughed. "She really, really likes to cook so if any of us ever try to cook when she's here, she will completely take over and then complain you've done it all wrong. We've given up trying to distract her, so we just get takeaway food each time they come now."

"I didn't really like the food last time." I told him sheepishly. I felt so ungrateful saying I didn't like the food, especially considering what I'd had previously.

"That's okay. We can look at the menu and see if there anything you do like. There are heaps of options." He stood up and I followed him upstairs to his room. He grabbed his laptop off his desk and threw it onto his bed. I sat next to him as he brought up the menu.

"Will I get one of these?"

"The laptop, you mean?"

"Yeah." I nodded.

"I think so. I should ask mum actually. They belong to the school; we just pay to use them. Everyone has to have one, so you'll be able to. It's just whether or not they get you one now, since it's so close to the end of the year. Here's the menu. What kind of food do you like?"

"I don't know...chocolate?" I shrugged.

"You can't eat chocolate for dinner Ash!" He laughed. "Well, at least not with mum or Nick around. Dad might let you, but you'd have to be really, really lucky. What don't you like then?"

"I don't like spicy food." I made a face and he smirked.

We read through the menu and looked at all the options. I liked the spring rolls last time, so we wrote those down, but they weren't enough to eat as a full meal. The rice was good too, but very plain on its own.

"What about this one?" He pointed to the honey chicken.

"What is it?"

"It's like chicken coated with honey. It sounds weird but it's really good. I'll share it with you if you like."

"Okay." I agreed. I'd come to find I like most sweet foods, and honey was sweet.

"So, what'd you think of Scarlett?" He laid down, closing his computer.

"Oh, uh...she's...nice."

"That wasn't very convincing." He chuckled.

"She was nice, what else do you want me to say!" I told him, too angrily.

"Calm down. Don't lie either."

"I'm not lying." I couldn't tell him about the conversation. She wasn't exactly mean, but I wouldn't call her nice either. What she said was kind of rude.

"Ash." He growled.

"You sound like Nick." I glared at him.

"Learnt from the best." He smirked. I've noticed that all of the boys take traits from Nick. They all really value his opinion too from what I'd seen. "Tell me the truth. What did you really think of her?"

"She asked me if I was adopted and said it wasn't possible that I was your sister."

"She what!?"

"You can't tell anyone." I blurted out.

"Ash! Our brother is dating her! She doesn't get to say that."

The conversation replayed in my head.

"Then who are you?"

"I'm Austin's twin." I explained slowly.

"That's not possible. The Hughes brothers don't have a sister."

"You broke my promise last time and I can't trust you if you do it again."

"Ash that girl has a reputation for stuff like this. I don't really like Jonah dating her anyway, but this gives us a reason to why he shouldn't!"

"No, Austin. Please." I begged. He sat there quietly. "I shouldn't have said anything." I mumbled, getting up to leave.

"Ash, come back." He grabbed my arm and sat me back on the bed. "Families are honest. Lying isn't acceptable, especially not around us. I promise I won't tell Jonah now, but if she says something again to any one of us, I'm not going to be afraid to bring it up." He said seriously.

"I'm not here to cause problems though! I've never even spoken to Jonah and now I'm going to be the reason they break up!"

"It's not you that'll be the reason. It's her. You've done nothing wrong; I promise. If we don't say anything, she's just going to go around thinking she can say whatever she wants to you, which isn't right."

"Just don't tell him."

"Okay." He nodded, after silently deliberating.

"Where are my grandbabies?" A voice yelled from downstairs.

"Nana! C'mon Ash!" Austin jumped up excitedly. That was the end of that conversation.

Austin has a history of not keeping his promises, so let's see what he does this time ;)  what do you reckon he's gonna do?

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