Where It Ends

05 | barrett meets brooks

THE UNIVERSE HAS TO BE THE MOST UNBIASED JUDGE OUT THERE. You'd think that it'd be simple, that good gets rewarded and evil gets punished. But life is much more complex than that. Although it's seemingly supposed to be the opposite, innocent people suffer while shitty people can do whatever the fuck they want without any consequences.

Whitney taught me that much. If there was anything I learned from her, it's that you should set your standards low. Because when you hope too much, hurt will always come with it.

My expectations for my new brothers weren't very high, but I couldn't help it. Old habits die hard. Dax led me to what I assumed would be the dining room and gave me a wide smile. There was something else in his eyes, but I couldn't tell it if it was hope or fear. Maybe something in between.

"Let's do this," he said.

I walked into the dining room to see Eli at the stove wearing some kind of apron, but what caught my eye more were the new faces sitting at the table. All of their eyes were on me as well, watching every move I made in a mix of awe and disbelief. Dax sat down in a chair and seemed like he wanted me to sit in the one next to him, but I took the seat that had empty ones on both sides. Even though he frowned at it, I ignored him. All I wanted was to get this over with so I could go back to hiding in my room.

In the meantime, I silently analyzed the other people at the table while maintaining my cold, stoic expression. The older looking one was more of a dirty blonde, two of the boys looked extremely similar with matching dark brown hair and eyes, and the one that looked closest to my age had light, almost-platinum hair. They were still staring at me in shock when Dax cleared his throat. I focused my gaze back onto him.

"Alright. Guys, this is Genevieve," he said.

I shifted in my seat with discomfort, and when hearing what Dax called me Eli looked back in confusion when he didn't hear a response from me. What I didn't know how to explain to him was that it was easier to just keep quiet. Make myself invisible like a ghost and just go along with whatever people want. But he looked like he wanted me to say something, so I sucked it up and did it anyway.

"Evie's fine," I corrected quietly. Probably a good thing I did; I was tired of hearing that name so much the past two days. A guy with dark brown hair broke out into a huge grin. They definitely like smiling here.

"I still can't believe it, you're... actually here," he said with this look of amazement on his face, like he genuinely couldn't believe it. I couldn't either.

"Yeah," I said and tried to muster a small smile but failed miserably, not sure how I was supposed to even respond to that. Thankfully for me that was exactly when Eli came over with a pan of scrambled eggs and a tray of cinnamon rolls. Before he could even set the rolls down, the older dirty blonde tried to reach for one only to be met with a smack on the hand from Eli.

"Hey! Rude," the blonde muttered, rubbing the hand that had gotten hit. Eli rolled his eyes at his antics.

"Be patient, Benj," he scolded. Their little encounter reminded me exactly of Niko and Claudia act. I wondered how all of them were taking this. They didn't have very positive opinions of my mother, but they tried not to bring it up for my sake. This was still so strange to me, being away from them. After all, they were my only family for the past eleven years.

They've been the main thing on my mind ever since I got here, which is strange considering it seems like it should be the opposite. If I didn't have them in my life, maybe I would have been ecstatic to know that I had a family that was always out there, just waiting for the day they'd see me again. But all I can think of is when I'll get to go back to where I belong.