Run - a.i // au

Nineteen

Ani's POV

6:58pm. I was driving in my car, my hair curled and red lipstick painted on. I had told Ashton I would be a few minutes late to dinner because I needed to pick up my dress from a special dress repair place a ways away.

He had no clue I was meeting Michael in the park, it'll just be a quick talk. I already had my plan: go in, ask whats the deal with the picture and then leave. The parking lot by the park was empty except for a few cars, one being Michael's. My pumps made a loud clicking noise as I got out of my car and walked towards the center fountain. I could see Michael's bright red hair as he sat down on the fountain.

Once he heard the sound of my heels, he turned around the look on his face extremely confused. "Ani? What are you doing here?" He asked standing up and coming over to me. "Well I kind of saw the picture on Ashton's phone and then replied to you and deleted the message" I used my tone of voice to make it sound better than it actually is.

"You did what?" Michael's eyes widened at my explanation, probably not a good thing. "I'm sorry Michael I was getting his phone for him and-" "ya but you could've just locked the phone and given it to him" he sighed dropping down to his knees and running his hands through this hair "god Aniston".

I stood there awkwardly as Michael refused to look at me "well I saw the picture, so I think I deserve an explanation" I finally said making Michael glance at me with a frusterated sigh. He stood up taking out his phone and opening it up, holding it up for me to see "is this the picture you saw?" He asked his hand slightly shaky. I squinted closely at the image, there was a man in a band T-Shirt with a small name tag that read Aiden and he was holding hands with a little Michael.

"Yes thats the right picture" "sit" he said patting next to him on one of the benches. I sat down next to him on the bench and he took in a deep breath staring me straight in the eyes. "My dad was named Aiden and he was in a band that had a few gigs here and there but never really took off from there. One night he met this girl, with beautiful perfectly spiral curled light brown hair and glowing green eyes" he smiled at the thought of his mom.

"Jaci (J-C) was her name. Shortly after Jaci had me, she flat out just left and Aiden was left to take care of me and tour with his band. One night when I was around 15, I found one of Aiden's journals and kind of chucked it in the back of my closet after about reading one or two pages. A month or two ago I found that journal deep in a box as I was unpacking for my new apartment and sat down to finish reading. I read about how Aiden had a wife named Celeste who he left pregnant to go off on tour. This hit me hard and made me think about how I felt when Jaci left me. So I looked up this Celeste girl and found out she died at an early age from cancer and that she was in a successful business but I could never find the name of her and Aiden's kid. I must have read those journal pages 100 times before I finally got so frustrated that I threw it against a wall and a small piece of paper flew out. It was a letter from Celeste explaining how she had a son named Ashton so I looked into this Ashton kid so I could make a bond with him like his dad never did. But I thought it might be a little weird to show up randomly at his doorstep and say hey we're step brothers so I thought it would be smarter to kind of work from the outside. I know it was a really stupid decision to make because now i'm going to end up hurting way more people than if I just told him in the first place" he finally took in a deep breath and I was speechless of all that just happened.

"So you were just pretending to be friends with me this whole time? At the hospital when you brought me all that stuff and helped me you did it just to get closer to Ashton?" I asked my voice slightly raised and Michael stood up putting his hands behind his head. "No Aniston I promise you its not like that" "then what is it like Michael?" I said clearly frustrated.