"Hey?" I greeted unsurely as I took a seat next to him.
"Hey, captain."
I rolled my eyes.
"What are you doing here?" I questioned.
"I can ask the same question, you know."
"It was getting suffocating." I shrugged and he sighed.
"I am trying." I furrowed my eyebrows.
"What?"
"Quitting my ways. I am trying to get rid of my habits." I nodded, a proud smile lifted my frown.
"I know you can do it." He sighed and turned to me after placing his bottle down.
"You don't understand it, Astrid."
"Understand what?"
"I know I can do it but who am I supposed to do it for?" I bit my lips.
"Do it for yourself and nobody else. At the end of the day, you're the only one who will stay with you."
He studied me for a minute before breathing out.
"You know, I have a half-brother."
"You do?" I asked, totally stunned. He nodded.
"I do. But we don't get along. He hates me and I am not his biggest fan either."
I looked down at my lap. Silence fell between us. I couldn't think of anything to say that will make him feel better, so I changed the topic.
"Shoot is in a week."
"Yeah." He whispered as I rubbed my arms, regretting not bringing a jacket. November was approaching now and so was the cold weather. "Are you nervous?"
"Pssht! I am never nervous." It was dark but I could almost feel him roll his eyes.
"Yeah, right. Says the girl who was freaking out because the rivals were a goal ahead."
"Shut up!" I glared at him.
"And the award for best retort goes to, Astrid whatever Parker."
I pushed him and he landed on floor with an 'oomf'. I laughed.
"It's like you haven't grown up at all!"
Oh! Did I forgot to tell you that Felix and I were rivals since we were kids? Well we were. He was technically the first person who interacted with me in school. How did he do that?
By getting pushed by me.
No I didn't bully him. He was pulling my braids as he used to sit next to me. I got angry and pushed him off the chair. He landed on floor with a thud and started crying.
We turned into absolute rivals after that and never left a chance to glare at each other. Though, my brothers kept him away from me and with time, our relation as arch nemesis faded into mutual indifference or rare hatred.
"Remember how you cried?"
"Of course, I do!" he rolled his eyes.
"Why did you hate me?" I asked curiously. He went silent but then chose to speak.
"I used to have a crush on you and I tried to grab your attention, which you never gave to anyone. I didn't hate you. I was just mad that you won't even look at me. So, I used to trouble you. The day you pushed me and I cried because of you, my feeling for you burned into dislike."
I tried to hide my blush.
"Y-you had a crush on me?"
He chuckled.
"You used to be so clueless! Half of the male population had. Your brothers threatened us to stay away from you, even when we were 7 or 8 year olds. That's why Rachael is so insecure and jealous of you. She had all the attention before you."
"Wow. I never thought that 8 year olds acted like this too."
He laughed and silence fell between us, until I a question popped in my head.
"Wait. Do I know your half brother?" I freaked out. His eyes went wide.
"Uh-I-"
"Astrid?" I craned my neck to see Caleb standing there.
"Yeah?"
"Neal is searching for you. You should go inside or your brothers will kill him."
My eyes widened and I quickly scrambled in after a quick 'talk to you later' directed towards Felix.
~~~~~~~
"I will see you in a bit. Let me change." Liam nodded and closed his window while I quickly changed into my sweatpants and Aiden's old t-shirt.
I hopped into his room after a while only to find him sitting on bed with his Journalism notes in hand. He still wore the bracelet I gave him.
"I hope it's not the related to the demise of Kovorelle or I will throw you out with it." He raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
Neal, Liam and I presented our theory in front of class last week and even though we didn't had solid proof that Cedric was alive, we were applauded. I was more than tired of the stupid investigation but Liam wasn't. He absolutely loved it. I have a feeling that he wants to be an FBI agent.
"Are you alright?" I questioned as I took a seat on bean bag next to his bed.
Well I have boyfriend now. Giving pillow talks to my neighbour while lying next to him will be awkward and wrong.
"Yeah. Just tired."
"Of?" he looked at me just like I looked at Alex when he asked me same question.
"Everything."
"Wanna talk?"
"No."
I nodded gingerly. I won't push him to talk as he tends to shut me down completely when I do. He kept the notes down on bed side table and laid down.
"You know our sun is just one of the 100 billion stars in our galaxy. There are three..."
He slept after a while and I hopped back into my room, knowing that I did my job well.
~~~~~~~~~
"Aiden! I still can't figure out how you did this." I whined as Aiden rolled his eyes and grabbed my notebook.
"See, y is equal to this equation and its also equal to 5 at x's value 20. So if we put it into it-"
"Okay! I got it!" I fist pump the air and start solving the problem again.
Exams were nowhere in sight but Aiden, I and Alex slacked a lot because of practises and right now, we were making up for that.
"Can someone help me with this?" Alex whined beside me. We three were sitting on the floor, in a circle and funniest part is, we were studying different subjects.
"You are so hopeless with this." I teased.
"Tell me about it." He rolled his eyes and grumbled.
I helped him with the thermodynamic concept while Aiden concentrated on Biology.
Asher and Rose were in game room, enjoying their lives, even when Asher too had a match last week, 2 days after ours. Obviously his team won.
'Parker siblings again proved why they run the school.' That's what school newspaper printed after his win.
"You know what? I am done! I am going to skip this chapter altogether." Alex groaned and tugged his hair in frustration.
The poor guy got better in every topic of Chemistry but thermodynamics always flew above his head no matter how hard I tried to teach him.
"Try-"
"Don't even tell me to try, Aiden. I am gonna die out of brain overheating or something like that. I am out of here." he groaned and ran out of room as if it suffocated him. Aiden and I laughed.
"He is another kind of crazy." Aiden shook his head.
"He is your best friend, isn't he?" I questioned with a smile. Aiden was caught off guard but then he smiled.
"Yeah. He kind of is."
I nodded and we went back to studying. After a while, he cleared his throat.
"You don't mind, right?" I rolled my eyes. If this was Astrid before the drastic change, she would have admitted her insecurity openly but now, I am not insecure anymore.
"Of course I don't. No matter how rough we started, he is my friend too and it's not like I didn't make new friends. All three of us met new people and bonded with them. But that is not what matters. What matters is, how we never let our bond weaken because of that. It's always us against the world, remember?"
Aiden grinned and nodded.
"My sister grew up." I rolled my eyes but my smile said otherwise. I crawled and laid my head on Aiden's lap. He caressed my hair just like he used to do when I was young and couldn't sleep at night.
"On a serious note, I love you both more than my life and I know that you both do too. But you both need to understand that you don't have to feel guilty for loving someone else or bonding with someone else, just because you think I will feel left out. Your happiness is mine and you shouldn't sacrifice it just because you think I will be happier if you try to do the opposite thing."
Aiden took in my words and sighed.
"We love you, Astrid. You're our princess. Even if you don't act like the stereotypical Cinderella, you're and will always be our little princess who wears cleats instead of heels and my old t-shirts instead of gowns. We may be overprotective, but we have our reasons. We may keep things from you, but that is because we care for you and we are scared of hurting or losing you."
"You can never hurt me, Aiden." I mumbled, sleepily.
"You've no clue." He whispered but I was long asleep.