Chapter Ten:
Aria
All that I wanted was a distraction.
Clearly, that was far too much to ask for because when I threw open the front door of my father's house, the home was completely silent. I had only missed Noah's typical bedtime by about twenty minutes but clearly, I was twenty minutes too late and he and my father had both apparently retired to their beds for the night.
With an aggravated huff, I decided that I would do the next best thing and have a hot shower but even as I stood beneath the scorching shower head and tried to relax beneath the steady stream of water, my mind was running over the events of the date, the secretiveness, and Ben. I wasn't going to be satisfied until I had some idea of what the hell was going on.
I really did try to not go to his bedroom and confront him, knowing that he would have to wake up for school the following morning but after a long few minutes of pacing my bedroom in my pajamas, I finally trailed down the stairs and found my way to his bedroom, opening the door and turning on his bedroom light to reveal that he wasn't even here. I had never known my brother to be one to sneak out or at least, I was assuming that he had snuck out. Dad wasn't particularly strict but Ben had always been serious about school, he wasn't the type to stay up too late and risk falling asleep in any classes.
Clearly, my observation on that matter was wrong because it wasn't until two in the morning that I watched the front door carefully open and close and Ben take a few steps into the house, turning on a lamp beside the couch so that he could likely find his way into the kitchen for a snack. When he found me watching him from the couch, he startled, cursing under his breath. "You scared me." He said, moving a hand to his chest as if to settle his heart. "What are you even doing up so late?"
"I don't know Ben, maybe I've been waiting up all night worried about where you were. Where was that exactly?" I asked, standing from the couch as I neared him. He didn't smell of particularly pungent smoke or alcohol so at the very least there was a chance that he hadn't found himself hanging with the wrong crowd.
"I was out." He said smoothly, shrugging his shoulders as if to further emphasize that this was no big deal, a non-issue even.
"Out? Ben, it's two in the morning on a school night and that's all that you have to say?" I could admit that I was interrogating him by this point, my arms folding across my chest.
In an attempt to move toward his bedroom, completely abandoning his idea of making a trip to the kitchen, he attempted to side step me but, I moved with him. "Aria, I'm not a kid. I don't need you staying up waiting for me and trying to scold me."
"I wasn't waiting for you Ben, I couldn't sleep because honestly, I have no clue what's been going on with you lately. You called me multiple times when I had gone to spend the night at Emily's place. You texted me and said that you were scared, what was that about?" I asked, my brows furrowing as I watched him with a mixture of concern and confusion.
Ben visibly tensed then, drawing more confusion from me. Had he not expected for us to talk about it? "I just wasn't feeling well that night. I was running a fever that was kind of high. It was honestly an overreaction. I shouldn't have bothered you with that."
"Okay," I said, forcing myself to not give in to his final comment. He could always bother me with things like that, I would always come to him if he was sick and afraid. "Tonight, you were calling Paul. Why? How do the two of even know each other?"
By this point, he seemed very interested in ending this conversation, even peering over my shoulder down the hall toward his bedroom. "Someone told me that he sometimes, buys shitty cars, fixes them up then sells them. I was interested." He said with a shrug.
"Ben, I'm not stupid. What money do you have saved up to buy yourself a car?" I asked incredulously as I stared up at my younger brother.
"Just drop it." He snapped, making my eyes widen. It was like replaying the same argument with Paul. "I don't need to tell you everything that I have going on in my life." He said, his voice sharp.
"Ben clearly something is going on with you. You're easily agitated, you're coming home late, now suddenly interested in trying to buy some car for some reason?" I argued.
"I don't need you hovering over me Aria! I don't need you nagging me about what I'm doing or trying to punish me. You aren't my mom!" He shouted now, his hands clenching into fists as he took a step closer to me. His words were like a slap to the face. It was the first time that I had ever seen him like this, so seemingly desperate to have nothing to do with me and it was definitely the first time that he had ever outwardly expressed it.
"What's going on here guys? Your brother's sleeping down the hall." It was dad's voice that broke up the tension in the room, a light flickering on from the hall as he entered the living room space.
"Nothing, I'm just trying to get to sleep." Ben grumbled, giving me one final look before he turned to make his way down the hall to his bedroom.
I sighed heavily as I watched Ben walk away from me. A part of me was heartbroken. I knew that one day he would be a moody teenager and that he would even soon want nothing to do with spending so much time with me but I never quite thought we would ever be the siblings that couldn't get along.
"Want to talk about it?" Dad asked, watching me with furrowed brows.
I hesitated to even bring him into all of this. I'm sure that in his mind too, we were all supposed to live happily under his roof and suddenly I felt somewhat guilty about picking the fight at the thought. "I'm just worried about him… He's just been acting so different lately. I feel he's hiding something from me."
"He's a teenager, Aria. They hide things, they stay out late sometimes. He honestly reminds me of myself at that age." Dad said, surprising me enough that he caught my gaze. "I think that he just needs a little space."
"What if he gets himself into trouble?" I asked, shaking my head as if I'd already made up my mind that space wasn't an option for us.
"Then, he'll figure it out himself or come to us if he needs help." He said easily. "He's trying to navigate all of this too, just like you are. Moving to a new place… dealing with the loss of your mother. How have you been coping with all of it?" He explained, asking me the question after a brief pause in his train of thought.
I opened my mouth immediately to respond that I was fine however, I stopped myself. That wasn't the question that he was asking. He wanted to know how I have managed to be fine and the truth was that I managed being fine by avoiding thinking about all of it. By busying myself with worrying about my brothers. "I guess I haven't really been." I admitted.
"Maybe it's time you started." He suggested carefully and I knew that he was right. "I just want you taking care of yourself too. Finding your place here." He explained, reaching out to rub my back in a show of affection that I still wasn't quite used to. In response I only nodded.
Maybe he was right about this.
The sound of the waves crashing against the shore were calming to me as I sat on a blanket on the beach with Leah and Emily. It had been an entire week since my argument with Ben and I even though things were awkward at times between us now, I knew that it wouldn't compare to the next time that I would run into Paul.
"So, whats with all of the quiet lately?" Leah asked, sitting across from me and beside her cousin as she looked from the strawberry she was holding with her fingertips, to me.
I gave a slight shrug and shook my head, uncertain of how to explain myself momentarily. "I guess I've just had a lot of my mind lately." I admitted.
"Is everything okay?" Emily asked, always the first to come to someone's aid when they seemed in distress.
"Yes, I just feel like theres been so much tension between my brother and I. I think that my dad made me realize that some of that could go away if I focused more on my own self and the things that I want and I'm beginning to realize that he's right." I explained, watching Leah take a bite of her strawberry.
"So, what does focusing on yourself look like?" Leah asked curiously between bites.
"That's the hard part of all of this. I don't really know. I feel like I should just go for something, anything. I'm in my early twenties, I have my whole life ahead of me and I can do whatever I want to. I could take classes in the city, I could move to the city…any city. Could that be a mistake? Yes, but at least it's my mistake to make. Isn't that what your twenties are about?" I asked, gaining a bit more momentum the longer that I spoke.
"The city?" Emily asked and for some reason, I watched as concern washed over her expression.
"Yeah, I could survive it." I insisted trying to defend myself based on her apparent worry.
Leah smirked as she looked between our expressions. "I'm sure that you could survive it. It just doesn't really sound like you is all. You don't strike me as someone too interested in city living. The loudness, all of the people. Just sounds like too much." She commented, clearly finding amusement in the direction that this conversation was going.
I rolled my eyes and laughed in response to her and by now, Emily was the only here that didn't seem amused by the conversation. "Can you have some faith in me Emily?" I asked with a hint of laughter.
"I do, I just… What about Paul?" She asked, stealing away my moment of laughter and sobering me up at the sound of that name.
"What about Paul?" I asked, my brows furrowing in confusion.
My confusion only grew as I watched Emily and Leah share a look, finally, Emily lifted her hands as if to surrender. "I just think that its something that he would want to know about. He told me and Sam about your date. He likes you Aria, more than you think."
"It was just a thought. I don't think that I could actually leave my brothers any time soon anyway. I'm not ready for that big of a change." I sighed, feeling that if I didn't hurry and remind her of this, we would also end up in an argument based on how strongly she felt the need to bring up Paul's perspective.
"Wait, you and Paul went on a date?" Leah questioned.
"Yeah, it actually went really well until it didn't. I haven't spoken to him since. I think it's just better if we stay friends. I feel like with everything else going on it's all that I can handle right now." I explained, leaning over to pick up a strawberry and take a bite.
"It'll all work out Aria." Emily said encouragingly but I didn't know how she felt so certain.
"Maybe you should start off small…" Emily started but just as she began to speak, my eyes trailed out in the distance beyond her, where I could make out several figures standing near the edge of the cliffs, shoving at one another and laughing. It took a double take for me to come to the realization that I was familiar with these figures. There—so close to the edge—I could see my younger brother, dwarfed by Jared, Paul, Sam and even a couple of other guys that I couldn't put a name to, seemingly grinning as they seemed to be making gestures toward the water.
"What are they doing up there?" I asked, potentially interrupting Leah but I wasn't listening anymore and I figured that was obvious.
"Being reckless per usual." Leah commented casually though they now held her attention.
In the past week, I had made a promise to myself. I promised myself that I would simply allow Ben to be my little brother, whether that meant that he was going to make a mistake or do the right thing, it wasn't my job to try and control him. I stood on that promise—to simply not intervene until I watched a sight before me that sent my heart dropping into my stomach.
I had glanced up just in time to see Jared, shove my younger brother off of the cliff and watch him plummet toward the water. "Ben!" The scream left me without me fully even processing what had happened and my body was moving on instincts alone. I was on my feet and racing toward the water, the sand shifting beneath my shoes and the water clinging to my jeans and sweater making it harder to get to him quickly. I could faintly hear Emily and Leah screaming out for me from behind but I could hardly hear that beneath the sound of my pulse pounding in my ears or the water crashing against the shore.
The water was uncomfortably cold but I didn't care as my vision blurred in panic and I desperately tried to focus on finding my brother, who's head eventually popped up from the water, moving toward the shore off to the side of me.
My knees buckled as I stood on my feet after reaching the shore, racing to meet him a few feet away. "Ben!" I cried out, nearly crashing into him as I gripped his shoulders as I inspected him for any sign of injury, my breaths coming out in short, panicked gasps. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?" I asked, desperate for an answer.
It was only then that I realized that he was laughing, likely to keep the others that now approached the shore from seeing him hurt. "Aria, it's not a big deal. I'm fine." He said, a look of light embarrassment taking over his expression.
"It is a big deal! You were pushed off of a cliff! You could have gotten hurt!" I snapped but my attention as immediately taken away from him at the sound of Jared's booming laughter as he approached us.
"Come on Aria. He's fine, he can handle it." Jared teased me with a wide grin, as if this was all some sort of funny joke.
"Do you think this is funny?" I demanded, moving toward him and placing my hands on his bare chest to shove him. Even though I used just about all of my force to show him how pissed off I was, he hardly budged.
"Aria, stop it!" My brother's voice came from behind me as he grabbed me by the the arm and physically steered me away from the man. "You're embarrassing me!" He said into my ear harshly as he did so.
For the first time since my moment of panic, I looked up to see the flush in my brother's cheeks and the pleading look in his eyes. Turning my gaze from him and onto the other men around us, I realized that they were all watching us with expressions ranging from amusement to curiosity. With that realization my own cheeks warmed with a flush of embarrassment at my reaction or rather—seeming overreaction.
I didn't say anything as I turned away from the small crowd that had gathered around and began walking up the beach. Tears stung my eyes with the realization that I had embarrassed both me and my brother and even more so when I came to the realization that maybe I was the problem here. Maybe I had imagined that all of us were having a hard time adjusting to being here and fitting in when in reality, I was the only one struggling and making things worse for everyone else.
"Aria, wait!" It was Paul that was calling after me, I would know his voice anywhere but, I didn't wait up for him. Instead he caught up to me insisting on not allowing me to have a moment of humiliation alone.
"I don't want to talk about this." I snapped, refusing to stop my walking or turn to face him. "I'm fine."
"You were scared." He commented, being careful with me.
"Of course, I was scared! I just watched my little brother get pushed off of cliff by one of the much older guys that he insists on hanging out with! One of which suddenly has no problem openly hanging out with him after lying about even knowing him." I said, turning to dart him a look of frustration.
"It's not like we're forcing him to do anything that he doesn't want to do." He commented. By this point I was admittedly trying to move faster on my feet to emphasize that I did not want to be around him right now but he easily kept up with my pace. "He's with us because he wants to be."
"That's the problem! I don't even know if you guys are good influences on him." I said, throwing my hands up and stopping to turn to him. "I guess if he's spending all of this time with you though, his sudden temper makes a lot of sense. I don't like it. I don't like how secretive you all have been. I don't need him getting hurt trying to keep up with all of you."
"He won't get hurt." Paul said with not even an ounce of uncertainty. "I won't let that happen. I want for you to trust me and that's one promise that I can make. I'll earn your trust by keeping my promise."
Because I had no response, or any idea of whether or not I could truly trust Paul at this point, I simple responded with a sigh. Just when I was moving to start my walk again, in the direction of home, he moved to step in front of me. "I'll drive you home."
"No, tha—"
"It's freezing outside, your clothes are wet, and I'm going to take you home so that you don't get sick. Can you not be stubborn about this one thing?" He asked me. For a moment we had a stare off but he was far better at it than me.
"Fine." I reluctantly agreed.
A/n: Two chapters within a couple of days ofeach other? Who am I? Haha, I'm just not certain of how soon I will be able to post again so I decided to give you guys a treat. I'm working on future chapters though, don't worry. I'm thinking that I will post the next chapter once I reach maybe 15 reviews on my story and 23 followers. Thank you for reading!