The Year

Chapter 9.

"How come I never knew you had a baby sister?!"

"Because I never told you?!" He laughed slightly.

"Not the time Ashton." I said.

"We weren't exactly friends and I never told anyone either so if it makes you feel better not many people at school know." He shrugged.

"Well it doesn't. And I'm pretty sure we were friends when she was born. How old is she anyway?"

He paused for a moment, sighed, then opened his mouth to continue again.

"Alright. In 9th grade my mom got pregnant. We didn't want anyone to know. My sister was already sick back then but I didn't know. So it wasn't exactly okay. When we started high school, Brea was born. And shortly after Jenna died. My parents didn't want to keep her. It was too hard for them to look at her. They were gonna give her away for adoption, but I stopped them. She was a baby. And we were able to look after her, why send her away?! I convinced them to not go through with it. So they agreed at last. And Brea actually helped them with Jenna's death. She helped my parents move on. It's strange, how my mom gave birth and then a short time later, death took her other daughter away. It wasn't easy learning to love Brea. But we managed. The three of us together."

"I'm speechless Ash. I don't know what to say." I said my eyes getting teary.

"Well, just say anything but 'I'm sorry'." He said with a chuckle.

"Oh no, God no. Of course not." I said with a laugh.

"She's everything now. To me ,to my parents. She's almost three. But she's so smart, she looks like Jenna a lot of times. She moves like her, does small gestures that reminds me of her. It would have been great if she knew her sister. If Jenna was alive right now she would have been thirteen, she would have made an amazing older sister." He said as his voice broke.

And at that moment. Ashton Holmes started to cry. He was sobbing like a baby. Crying out loud, with his face burried in his hands. I moved closer to him on the couch slowly, and wrapped my arms around him. He hugged me back holding on to me tightly and burried his face in my shoulder and continued crying.

I never thought I would see Ashton cry. He was so vulnerable, so broken, I never knew his sister's death affected him that much.

We weren't on speaking terms when his sister died. I found out a while later. But I never knew she died of cancer. He never told anyone, only Darren knew the truth about his sister's death and his other sister's birth.

After a while he calmed down and washed his face. When he came back all I did was sit next to him and watch tv with him. He didn't want to talk, neither did I. Silence took over the room, but it was a comfortable silence. Not an awkward one.

Two hours later he was the first one to speak.

"Thank you." He blurted out.

"For what?" I said.

"For being there for me, I knew I'm the one who should be there for you, but." He trailed off.

"From now on, let's just be there for each other, okay?" I said and he nodded.

Not a moment later, the door opened revealing his parents.

"Oh hello." Becky, Ashton's mother said with a smile. I greeted her back.

"Mom, you remember Maisie." He said as we both walked towards his parents.

"Of course, we haven't seen you here for a while." She said shaking my hand.

"Well you're gonna be seeing a lot of her now." Ashton said.

"Are you two dating?" Gregg, his father chimed in with a grin.