Hello Stranger

Chapter 22

"Hi," I say sheepishly. What do you say when someone catches you eavesdropping on their conversation about you?

"I know you heard that," Ellie says sitting down beside me. I shrug and continue reading the book. "Are you okay?"

I shrug again, "I guess."

"What's going on?" Ellie says softly trying not to push too much.

I laugh at her question but even she knew it was fake. I tried smiling but it didn't quite reach my face. I look at her in defeat, "I don't know. If you figure it out, can you tell me? Cause I'm lost."

Ellie's eyes were begging me to talk to her. "What happened? Talk to me. Please?" Her voice pleaded with me and I wanted nothing more than to talk to her, but what would I even say? What can I say?

I opened my mouth wanting to answer, but then it hit me. She's not the one I should be talking to about it. I need to talk to someone who's going through it too because we need to be there and help each other. "I can't," I finally answer.

"What can I do?" Ellie questions.

"Do you know where Asher is?" I ask pushing myself from the floor and returning the book to the shelf.

"I saw him in the parking lot this morning. But I'm not sure. I'd assume he went to class, but I'm not sure anymore," Ellie admits.

"Thank you," I give Ellie a smile hoping she knows how much her being here means to me. But I couldn't stay longer. I jogged out of the library making sure Mr. Chang wasn't looking. Luckily for me, he was too busy flirting with the librarian. I made my way to the Chemistry lab. That's what class Asher has right now, and I was hoping he was there.

I looked in through the open classroom door but there was no Asher inside. Of course, there wasn't. But I spotted a friendly face that may be able to help. I squatted low and snuck in. Seeing as he was in the back row, I didn't have to go far. He looked at me in confusion. "Andrea? What are you doing?" He whispered to me.

"Sorry," I whisper back. "Danny, I'm looking for my brother. Did he come to class?"

Danny looked at me in disbelief as if he couldn't believe I was there. "Actually, yes. He left maybe five minutes ago."

Thank you, Danny! "Do you know where he went?" I ask.

"Check the field," He whispers back.

Of course, I should've known that. "Thank you," I whisper back before kissing him on the cheek and running out.

Sure enough, Asher was sitting at the top of the bleachers with his head hanging between his legs. He didn't even notice me climbing the bleachers and approaching him. My brother was always my other half. We went through almost everything together. We knew each other like the back of our hands, but this one hit us differently. He was always the one pretending to be strong for me, but this time the roles were reversed. I think how Asher was under the impression I didn't care when in reality it was destroying me on the inside. But my own feelings clouded my head and I couldn't see the person who loved me the most was hurting so much and I wasn't there for him like I should have been.

I sat beside him and he finally looked up and noticed me. First, he was shocked when I sat down, but he relaxed when he saw it was me. We both looked out at the field where a gym class ran laps around it. We said nothing and just watched. How do you start a conversation like this? How do you talk about finding out your parents aren't really your parents?

"I knew," Asher said breaking the silence. I turn my gaze to Asher and waited for him to continue. I didn't want to speak too soon and he shut down. "They were arguing once and I heard her say that she was tired of lying to us about our parents."

"What?" I say breathlessly. Did he know? No. There was no way.

"But I didn't know. It was the night before they first left. I thought she was saying they were keeping secrets from us, not that they aren't our parents," Asher explains. "I always felt like something was off about it, but I didn't know what. I just shut it out of mine. But I knew, Andy. I was just too fucking stupid to understand."

"You were young," I defend.

"I was ten. I should've been smarter," His eyes were bloodshot from crying. He looked and sounded as helpless as I felt.

"No. Don't do this to yourself," I beg him. "They raised us. We thought we were supposed to trust them. We were supposed to be able to trust them. You can not blame yourself because they were a disappointment. You can't hate yourself when you didn't know any better."

"I don't hate myself for not knowing," He admitted. I could see the tears falling from his eyes. And I knew my eyes matched his. The tears had already blurred my vision and soaked my cheeks. "I hate myself for still caring about them."

I hug my brother tightly, "Don't hate yourself for having a good heart. It's one of the best things about you. Besides, all of our earliest memories are of them, it'd be hard not to care."

"But you hate them," He says holding me. "Why can't I?"

"I don't hate them," I say truthfully. "I'm just hurt. I've been hurt since they left. It's just easier being angry at them than being sad they're not here. Even now it's easier pretending to be angry than admitting that I'm so sad they disappointed me. And that I'm so fucking lost and scared."

"If it makes you feel any better, at least you're not lost and scared alone. Because I'm so lost and scared that I'm exhausted. And I really could use a burger," He jokes.

We both let each other go and laugh through our tears. "Then, why are we still here?" I ask wiping away the rest of the tears from my cheek.

"Probably because we have this weird thing called school," Asher laughs.

"We could pass with our eye closed. Therefore, what's the point of even coming? We have so much other stuff going on. Why waste our time?" I say. It wasn't a lie. Me and Asher never had someone to try to make pooud with our grades. But because of that we also didn't have anyone that cared enough about our future so we had to pave our own way. In doing so, we put ourselves so far ahead that there was very little chance that we'd fail. And all of teachers knew that we didnn't have to be there.

"Fine. We can skip, on one condition," Asher states.

I eye him carefully, "What's the condition?"

"You tell me what's going on in that strong mind of yours. Including about the infamous Grayson," Asher replies. I laugh.

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Author's Note:

Hey guys, I've honestly had a little bit of writer's block with this story. So, today I've uploaded two chapter's today. I don't know if they're any good but I hope so.

Who do you want Andrea to end up with? What do you think is going to happen?

Also, I have started writing another story so I will be uploading the first 3 chapters sometime this weekend, I just have to finish editing them, and it will be up by the end of this weekend.

Don't forget to follow me on Instagram @_amiyaaa.__ (and that is also my tik tok).