Chris sighed as he strolled into the quiet garden. It was beautiful here. He was kinda happy that Ashleigh said that she wanted to meet him here because it was always peaceful and lots of fun, atleast to him. He always wished that, while he was here, he would be able to have a nice date with a girl and bring her here at night, just to show her the lights and the fountain. Even though he had a girl in mind, as of right now, they were only friends, and he didn't want to screw that up. He smiled as the vision of her beautiful long hair and gorgeous deep eyes flashed before his eyes. He smiled and found a bench in the middle of the garden, waiting for his twin.



He sighed loudly and looked down at the outfit he had chosen for today: a pair of dark wash vintage jeans and a blue and white striped polo. He pulled his black cell from his pocket and quickly typed in a text to Ashleigh.



He pushed the green send button and waited, looking around at all the plants that surrounded him.

"And people to do?"

Ashleigh asked, appearing almost directly behind him. In her hand was her dark blue rizr, and once she walked a few more steps, she sat down onto the bench beside of him. She motioned around to all of the plants and smiled.

"It's so beautiful out here..."

Chris was one of the only people who could bring out the 'outgoing' side of Ash; probably because she's been wanting to kick his ass a few times in the last year. Shaking off the thought of their mind-blowing fight last year, she attempted a smile.

"You still want to bring a girl out here? Speaking of bring a girl out here, why am *I* here?" The smile got bigger, just to soften the words.

"To see you ... I never really get to see you anymore." he said, smiling over to her. He loved his sister, and even though part of that was true, he knew that wasn't the main reason he had asked her to come. He'd been waiting forever to talk to her, but now that she was actually here ... he wondered if he actually should. He sighed and looked up into his identical eyes.

"Well ... I guess ... advice?" he said, looking up at her and smiling weakly.

She tilted her head to the side and smiled once more, her eyes skimming his face--he looked nervous.

"Sure, bud; whatcha need?"

He had her face flash in front of his eyes. "Well ... there is this girl ... and you know her, well ... atleast you've heard me talk about her ..." he said, grinning slightly and sitting up straight.

God, he hoped that a few years from now, she would not use this as blackmail.

She grinned and ran a hand through her hair. Oh. My. God; her brother was in love!

"Alright, love-sick-puppy-dog, who is it?"

She laughed and looked around; then her phone vibrated in her pocket. As she pulled it out she saw that she had a new text message- from her mom?

"Ohshit."

She looked up to Chris, a bit of panic crossing her face; she hadn't talked to her mom in almost five months. She held out the phone, letting the word 'mom' flash across the screen a few times.

"What does she want?"

Chris kinda sighed, wondering if he really should've told her about this. "Evelyn." he said, running a hand through his hair.

He looked at her curiously at her 'Oh shit' remark and he looked at the phone screen. "Damn ... I don't know. Probably to be her old bitchy self. She's probably drunk." he said, wondering what his mother would want. He also, hadn't spoken to her in a good number of months.

Their mother had a weird way of showing up at the worse possible times. She would contact them and then they would go months, maybe years without hearing from her again. Especially last time she called. They had been at a funeral that was sort of a school friend, (he died from a car wreck) and their mother called right in the middle of the service. What made it even worse was the fact that she was drunk, so he hung up on her. His mother had been known for her 'drinking' ways. That's one of the reasons why their parents had split up.

He sighed and looked at the phone and then at Ashleigh. "You gonna answer it?"

She looked from the phone back to his face; memories were most likely running through his mind too. For some reason, it wasn't the bad memories that were running through her's, they were the complete opposite-- even though there were only a few. The one bad one that stuck out so vividly, though, was her sixteenth birthday.

Their father has always spoiled both of them, birthdays and holidays being no different. However, on their sixteenth birthday, it seemed like everyone had just...forgot (excluding Chris, of course). She woke up to a breakfast in bed, courtesy of her twin; and once she had ate that, she went back to her room and there was a small pink and white unicorn umbrella sitting on her bed--the same thing that he got for her on their sixth birthday.

She then pulled out a small present from the back of her closet-- a blue and white NCU hat and tickets for one of the games (for them to go together, duhh). After she gave it to him, she had gotten dressed for the day, thinking about how long it had been since she talked to her mom: two years, to be exact. A few hours later her father gave both her brother and her identical Nissan Titans (her's being dark blue and his being white) and went out to dinner. In short, it was probably her best birthday. When they got back, a tall dark haired woman was leaning against the side of the house; they weren't able to see much, but the small porch light revealed that she had been chain smoking Pal Mal's and her pale green eyes were bloodshot. When Ashleigh saw their mother, she immediately ran to the porch and pushed the palm of her hand against the woman's shoulder and screamed, "What the hell are you doing here!? You have to ruin fucking everything!" Ash then turned to run back to the trucks, but ran into her brother's chest; he wrapped his arms around her as she began to break down against him.

"Marcia, you need to leave," her father had said.

"Well, you know -hiccup- what, David?" She said, slurring her words and tilting to the side as she turned to walk away, "-hiccup- vuck you. Vuck you all!"

The threesome were quiet until they heard the sound of a car starting, pulling away, and then running into a telephone pole; and then Ashleigh turned into hysteric...laughing?

She shook off the thought and slid open the phone, which had stopped vibrating and flashing. 'One new message,' it read; as she slid the keypad down. Pressing a few buttons the message popped up and read out loud.

hey hunny; i was just in twon and wnatde to see yuo and your brothre. mEet me at deen portos at eightthirty. aye ashhhleighh

She shook her head and ran a hand through her hair, and looked up into her brother's eyes. "Should we go?"

He sighed as he looked over to his sister, noticing the phone had stopped flashing. He watched as she slid open the phone and read the message. "Damn." was the only word that came out of his mouth. He ran another hand through his hair. When he thought that he might actually get to talk to his sister about Evie, his mother had to come and fuck everything up, just like she did with everything else in their lives.

"I guess we should." he said, giving her a 'damn' look.

God, why did his mother do this to them. It was obvious she was drunk when she wrote the text to his sister. I mean, hello look at the way she spelled everything. He didn't even want to think about how tonight would be. And of course, their mother just wanted to go to a barfor dinner. He felt his body fall forward and covered his face in his hands. He took a moment to think and then looked back up at her. "Well ... there goes my ... 'oh ... there's this girl' moment.

closed.