Finding Home || bxb

6

"Alden!" he shouted across the corridor. There was no one else down here and I didn't like the thought of being alone with him anymore. I didn't know that I could trust him or not, so it would have been much better to be with him around other people. And I was just a little on edge after Roman abandoned me like that.

"Oh hey..." I said already turning to walk away.

"Wait up," he urged as he jogged to catch up with me. "Hey. Was hoping I'd catch you alone. Can we talk?"

"Sure." This will be good.

"Cool. Hi," he grinned. "I umm...how'd you like the party?"

"Yeah, it's alright."

"We have an indoor pool. You wanna see?" Of course, he has an indoor pool, but now is not the time I wanted to go swimming.

"Uhh you know, maybe another time. I need to find Dahlia, she was looking for me," I lied. His disappointment was palpable on his face, but I tried not to think about it too much. I didn't want to force myself into uncomfortable situations just to please someone else. Except apparently, I didn't mind so much with Roman, but I was pretty annoyed he'd left me there without another word.

"Oh, okay. Well, you should come by sometime. I'll show you the pool. Just us," he suggested. I told him maybe and left.

I texted Dahlia to see where she was. No reply. I tried Charlie next, but he also didn't reply. They were either busy with other people, didn't notice their phones, or they were just dicks.

I didn't care where they were anymore. I was fucking stressed. I decided all I needed right now was another drink and something strong for that matter. I made my way to the kitchen and swiped some of someone's vodka. They shouldn't have left it out on the counter if they didn't want anyone touching it. I poured some into a glass I cleaned out and swiped someone's coke as mixer.

And then I wandered through the house trying to find anything remotely interesting. I came across the pool room in fact. It was so fancy that it had marble columns around its perimeter and what looked like a sauna through a door in the back.

I could have lived like this. With my dad's promotion we'd just moved into a new house when they were still alive. It was a fixer upper, nowhere near as modern or fancy as this, but my dad wanted a project that he could do with mum. Something for all of us to do together to keep our connection as a family. I was even going to get to design my whole room however I wanted. Maybe I would have chosen columns and surely ripped them out when I got older and realised how tacky they were to have in a bedroom.

In the end I didn't get to have any of that though. All I got was a shared room in foster home to foster home, to the children's home where there was always noise and mess and people intruding on my privacy. Apparently, that's all I deserved.

I left the pool when I noticed myself staring for too long at the bottom of the water. I shouldn't be here upset and drunk. Lord knows what I would have done if I'd stayed in that room alone any longer. So I ventured out further into Arwyn's house.

There were framed pictures of him and his parents on the walls. No siblings in sight. He must have had everything handed to him on a silver plate his whole life. He's like a version of me that could have been and that this version of me would have hated. But if being spoilt and therefore ignorant meant my parents could have stayed alive then I would have done it.

When I found myself in what seemed to be a study, I found Roman again. He was inside sitting on a couch with his head in his hands.

"Seriously?" I questioned. "All of that just to sit in here wallowing in self pity?"