*Hazel's pov*
It had been a few days since we moved in and today, my mom wanted to meet our neighbors. We had already gone to our neighbors on our left and let me tell you.....seven kids and elderly people don't mix...at all.
My six year old brother, Leo, was running around the house using his pants as a superhero cape. My thirteen year old brother, Finn, was in a corner playing on his psp. My fifteen year old brother, Jason, was texting on his phone. My eighteen year old brother, Daniel, was pigging out in their fridge. My twenty year old brother, Alan, was on the couch rambling on about how common core needs to stop. My twenty two year old brother, Cameron, was chasing Leo around, trying to get his pants back on. My forty-three year old mom was watching this all in horror as she tried to get Alan to shut up so she could talk to the old couple. I was sitting on the stairs reading like an angel....Okay well the reading part was true.
The neighbors, Astrid and Robert Barton, tried their best to nicely kick us out.
"Well, we can still try with the other neighbors. And don't. Mess. This. Up." My mom said through gritted teeth.
We walked over to our neighbors on the right aka Greek god boy's house. We knocked and a woman, probably in her mid-forties opened it. She had wavy brown hair and electric blue eyes.
"Hi, we're your new neighbors. We wanted to come by and meet you!" My mom and the rest of us smiled at her.
"Oh, hello! Come in, come in!" She smiled brightly and gestured for us to walk inside her house. And oh my frick frack, it was so nice! It was a little bit bigger than mine. My house was made of beige bricks from the outside while hers was made of white-colored wood. It looked so nice on the inside too!
We all sat down on the couch and made sure to behave this time.
"My name's Olivia Grey." She greeted.
"My name's Vanessa Ambrielle." My mom introduced us afterwards.
~~~~~~~
Welp.....My mom and Mrs. Grey (hehe Fifty Shades am I right) had been talking for two hours straight as we sat there doing nothing but listen to their grown up gossip. How did my mom even know this stuff??? We'd only been here for a few days!
Sometime during the two hours, Mr. Grey aka Thomas Grey, came in and started talking, too. He seemed pretty nice.
Just as my boredom was about to kill me, I was saved in a way that was worse than boredom.
Mrs. Grey turned to me. "Hazel dear, can you please go call my son from upstairs? I want him to meet you all!" She smiled at me.
"Okay, sure. What's his name, though?" I didn't have choice! What, was I supposed to say no??? I wouldn't hear the end of it from my mom afterwards!!
"Oh, his name's Asher." She told me where his room was which was at the end of the hall on the left. My room was at the end of the hall on the right. No wonder our windows aligned.
It hit me that his name was Asher Grey. That was actually such a cool name, though I didn't want to admit it. I walked upstairs and creeped to his room. Ugh, I was so awkward! How was I just supposed to call a stranger down from his room?
I stood at his door contemplating different ways I could call him down. In every one, I ended up saying or doing something stupid or awkward. So I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. When I didn't get an open door, I began rapidly knocking on it.
I was about to do it again when the door swung open. "What do you want?!" He yelled in my face with a hard glare. His eyes went a little wide as if he was expecting someone else and not me, but he kept the same face. Why was he such a jerk??
"Oh it's you... Um, hi? What are you doing in my house?" He raised an eyebrow at me. Hmm, maybe I just caught him off guard.
"Uhh...My um-my mom wanted to come meet the neighbors." I was a stuttering mess!
"Okayyy....But, why are you knocking on my bedroom door?" He kept his eyebrow raised.
"Your mom was busy talking to my mom so she asked me to call you down." Wow, I actually got that sentence out right! One-hundred awesome points to me!
"Ugh. Okay, fine." He walked out of his room and closed the door behind him. Well, he was moody.
He was ahead of me, so I jogged to catch up and I stopped next to him. We walked downstairs alongside each other.
We reached the bottom and more introductions were made. But of course, my mom forgot to introduce me. Struggles of being a middle child, heyyyooo!
Asher turned to me after he was introduced to my family and whispered,"So, what's your name, Princess?"
"Does it matter? You're just gonna keep calling me by that nickname." I couldn't suppress the little grin on my face as I rolled my eyes.
"Can I just have your name?" He grinned back.
"Hazel Ambrielle."
"Oh. Well that's a nice name, Princess. Very beautiful and elegant." Even bigger grin there.
Ha, I couldn't find anything elegant about myself. I hated that I was always awkward and clumsy. But it was nice that he thought that about my name. "Thanks, your name's nice, too. Your mom told me what it was."
I didn't quite know what to say afterwards and I'm guessing neither did he so we just stood there awkwardly next to each other.
Eventually, I slipped away and sat down at the couch. Asher ended up following, but he didn't sit next to me, thankfully.
"Seven kids! Can you believe that, Thomas? We only have three!" She turned to Mr. Grey and he nodded in disbelief.
"Three? I thought it was just Asher." My mom said.
"No, Asher has an older brother named Jaxon. He's twenty-four. He doesn't live here but he visits sometimes. He goes to college not too far away. He also has a younger sister named Ava. She's six. Jaxon was visiting and took her out to eat so that's why they're not here." Mrs. Grey clarified.
Wow, Asher had siblings? He struck me as more of an only child. Maybe that was because of his big, cocky personality. I figured he was that way because he got all of his parents' attention.
At the mention of his brother, Asher clenched his fists a bit and his knuckles turned white. I'm guessing they didn't have the best relationship. Or maybe it was something else. It was probably his reaction to a spider he saw or something. Wait, was there a spider?! I calmed down when I saw no spider around me.
Mrs. Grey turned to my mom again. "Enough about our kids, though. Where's your husband? Is he out at work? Thomas is always working, too."
At the mention of my dad, my brothers and I all looked at each other. My older brothers all looked mad, their anger directed towards my dad. My younger brothers looked sad. I felt a little bit of both. But mostly, my brothers and I were worried about our mom.
She took it really hard when he cheated on her with his mistress and left her. That was all three years ago, but when they announced their marriage, my mother insisted moving states. Did that sound stable to you?
When we braced ourselves for my mom to say that she didn't have a husband, she said something completely unexpected.
"Oh yeah! My husband is on a business trip at the moment!" She put on a fake smile but we could see how badly she wanted to cry. We knew because she did that a lot for our sake.
We all opened our mouths in shock. What was she doing? Why was she lying?
"Oh really? That's nice. You know-" Mrs. Grey was cut off.
"Actually, you know what? Tomorrow I'm really busy and it's getting late. I'm sorry! I hope we can talk sometime soon. Come on kids. Bye!" My mom stormed out in the nicest way possible while my brothers and I quickly followed after her.
We were almost nearly as close as my mom in our emotional state.
As I was walking out, a hand caught my wrist. "You okay?" Asher looked genuinely concerned.
I realized that I was shaking a little, my teeth were chattering lightly, and I was breathing more heavily than usual. That happened sometimes when I was about to cry.
I turned to Asher and smiled through my chattering teeth. "Y-yeah. I'm- I'm p-perfectly fine. B-bye." I pulled my wrist out of his grasp and left.
When we got to my house, the silence was deadly as we waited for something to happen. We didn't know what to say.
Out of nowhere, my mom burst into tears. "Why did I lie? I could have just told them that I didn't have a husband! Why do I miss him so much?" She crumpled to the floor.
We all ran to her and hugged her. We did our best to comfort her.
"It's okay. You don't have to tell people right away."
"He doesn't deserve you!"
"Yeah! You're so much better off without him!"
"I was only three when I last saw him, but I know he's a jerk!" Poor little Leo tried to help.
My mom wiped away her tears and smiled at us. "Aw, I love you guys. Thank you."
"No problem!" We all chimed in.
"Why don't you guys head on off to bed? It's late. I think sleep could help me too." She said and walked with us upstairs.
As I went to sleep, I tried to think of something that would cheer me up. My mind automatically went to Asher's concern for me. We barely even knew each other and he asked if I was okay. That was surprisingly sweet. Maybe there was more to him that I'd seen so far.
However, I wouldn't trust him so easily. It was going to take more than that to get me to open up. He could've possibly been a good friend, though. If he dropped the arrogant act. And as much as I didn't want to, I fell asleep to the thought of Asher....
A/N: Hey. This was a bit more of a serious chapter. I'm sorry for the late update. Please vote and read on! I love you byeeee lovelies!!!â¤â¤â¤
---Your author Gen