Chapter 9

Alexander was shockingly correct.

They did get along just fine.

Although Adrianna did have her doubts about it at first, Alexander managed to astonish her with his quiet intellectual focus on their lab assignment. Everything from his quick observations to his precise calculations was completed with efficiency. Any subtle conversations they did manage to have was directed to their lab work.

By the time they finished, there was still twelve minutes left of class. Most of the other students were still madly trying to finish up the first part of the lab assignment before the bell rang.

Adrianna shifted uncomfortably in her seat as she tried to find a way to release the silence that was suffocating her. She glanced at Alexander who looked as impassive as ever. He did not seem to be effected by the awkward silence between them. Maybe part of the reason was because he was distracted by his phone.

Adrianna sighed and decided to try to strike up a conversation with him. "So Alexander what do you like to do for fun?

He glanced up at her from his phone and gave her a look that asked if she was serious. "Nothing," he replied before turning back to his cellular device and tapping something into it.

Adrianna stared at him skeptically. "Somehow I find that hard to believe..." she trailed off before switching to another subject. "Okay fine how about family? Do you live with them? What about siblings-"

Alexander suddenly narrowed his frosty blue eyes at her. "Listen Adrianna I'm not in the mood to play twenty fucking questions. My personal life does not concern you. You'd run the other direction if you knew."

Adrianna frowned at his rude response. She felt almost disappointed at his change in attitude towards her. "Well you're the one who wanted to start over with this whole being 'friends' thing. So I was hoping to try it out because here you were for the last forty minutes acting like a normal person until you suddenly become cold and closed off. I honestly don't get you," she muttered as she stood up and shoved her things into her bag.

Alexander was silent for a couple of seconds, but when he replied, it sent chills down Adrianna's back. "Fine if you really want to know then I'll tell you. Don't say I didn't warn you," he snapped before his voice lowered so that only she could hear. "When I was three, I watched my mother blast her brains out with a gun. When I was four, my oldest brother tried to drown me. When I was five, I was locked in a metal cubicle for days without food. The list keeps going. Are you happy now?"

Adrianna's face turned sickly pale. Her body felt cold and numb. She tried to open her mouth to speak but nothing came out. What can someone say to something like that? That they are sorry about what happened to them?

It was hard to imagine that anyone could come out unscathed from those incidents, much less a small child. She didn't want to believe it. She hoped he was lying just to scare her and yet his grim expression told her that it was all true.

Adrianna's heart broke. Every part of Alexander's razor sharp personality suddenly made sense to her. He may act callous and uncaring, but internally he was tormented by his past. He lost his innocence at a young age. He lost his childhood. Who wouldn't become bitter?

Adrianna bit the bottom of her lips as she tried to think of the right thing to say to him. "I'm sorry. It was wrong of me to intrude on your personal life. If you want to talk about it, I'm here..."

Alexander sneered at her lousy apology. He couldn't believe that this is all she had to say to him. And here he thought she was different from everyone else. "Yeah whatever. You have no idea what my life is like, so don't get all sentimental with me."

Adrianna remained silent for a long time before she glanced at Alexander. "You're right. I don't know any details about you or your past, but one thing I do know for sure is that you're hurting." she declared. "At first I couldn't get a read on you. You're so pensive all the time, and whenever you're not stone cold, you're just plain rude. But now it's kind of obvious that the way you act stems from a turbulent childhood-"

"What are you now? My psychologist?" growled Alexander.

Adrianna ignored his sarcastic response. "Now this exactly proves my point. You're very irritable, especially on touchy subjects like this. As much as you hate to admit it, you need to talk to someone. It's not healthy to lock and bottle up your emotions like this. A good comparison of this is to the gas law theories in which high pressure-"

Alexander glowered. "Fuck off. I get it."

"I was just trying to help..." mumbled Adrianna.

When the bell rang a minute later Alexander grabbed his backpack and immediately walked out the door without another glance back.

Adrianna sighed.

Alexander was right.

She shouldn't have asked.

***

Lunch couldn't come soon enough.

For most of the day Adrianna was troubled by what Alexander had told her. She couldn't stop thinking about his childhood and what it must have been like to go through so much pain. Worst of all, he reminded her so much of the little boy she had befriended so many years back...

"Xander, why are always you covered in booboos?" asked little Adrianna curiously as she watched the dark haired boy throw some stones into the small pond.

Xander didn't reply. Instead a dark scowl appeared on his chubby face, making Adrianna's heart pound with fear. He never looked so scary before, or at least not for this long. Usually she would manage to cheer him up if something bothered him, but not today.

A cold gust of wind blew past them, sending red and orange leaves dancing into the empty pond.

Adrianna crossed her arms together and shivered. She tried to keep herself busy by looking around the forest and studying her surroundings. Most of the trees had lost their leaves-many of which lay in colourful piles on the ground. Smaller bushes and flowering plants withered away as winter drew closer. The majority of the forest inhabitants were nowhere to be found, sleeping as many of the story books say.

Adrianna sighed. She wished Xander would play with her. It was getting awfully boring just standing there. Just as she was about to turn back to him, a movement in the distance caught her attention. At first she thought it was just a passing animal, but when it came closer the figure looked like another human being.

Without warning, Adrianna was pushed to the ground. The movement was so sudden that it knocked the air out of her lungs. She whimpered in pain and struggled to stand back up. No sooner did she do that, a hand pressed her back down into the damp earth.

"Sshhh!" hissed Xander as he pressed his body against hers. "Whatever happens, don't make a sound okay?"

Adrianna gave him a frightened nod.

"Ohhhh Xander where are you? Come out, come out, wherever you are!" shrilled the voice. "Father's not happy to find you gone. Again."

Adrianna watched in horror as Xander left her side and sauntered forward to where the stranger was. She shifted a little to see that the stranger was in fact an older version of Xander. The mystery boy had the exact dark shaggy hair and the exact facial features, but what she saw next caused her to stifle a gasp. His eyes were different colour. One of it was a frosty blue colour, while the other was dark brown. It held immense coldness, none of which was remotely similar to Xander's tender mocking blue eyes.

"I'm here brother," said Xander quietly.

The older boy smirked menacingly and took a step closer to him. "Oh I know you're here and your punishment will come very soon. But in the meantime, isn't there someone else you should be worried about?" he asked while stepping past him and walking towards the very spot Adrianna was huddled in.

Before the boy could go any further, Xander flung himself at him. "Run Addy! Run!" he yelled.

Adrianna was frozen for a couple of seconds as she watched the tussle between the two boys. Her heart hammered faster when she saw a flash of silver appear in Xander's hand. When blood started to appear, she panicked and darted into the opposite direction.

She never looked back.

"Earth to Adrianna!" yelled a voice into her ear.

Adrianna jumped out of her seat only to find her sprawled on the cafeteria floor. She groaned as she tried to stand up. "What happened?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "Well you're day dreaming as always," she said sarcastically. "Anyways, what was the super crazy news you wanted to share with me today but didn't get a chance to?"

Adrianna rubbed her eyes while she tried to sort her thoughts out. After a good minute, she answered by pulling out the mystery journal out of her bag. "Well recently I found out that I was adopted through a picture in this journal someone left on my doorstep. Now I need help figuring out which language this is written in and how to translate it," she explained.

Lily's jaw dropped. "No freaking way! Are you saying that my whole life is a lie now?"

Adrianna snorted at her friend's question. "Ha-ha very funny. If anyone's life is a lie, it's mine. Now onto the more serious part," she paused and opened the journal to the first page. "Does this language look familiar to you?"

"Yeah it does," said Lily. "But which language it is, I can't say."

Adrianna rolled her eyes at that response. "You're a real help, even I can tell it's an eastern European language, probably somewhere along the lines of Slavic. But I can't figure out which one it is."

"Use google translate," suggested Lily jokingly.

"No that won't help her at all," interrupted Katie. "Anyone with half a brain knows that google translate doesn't do shit when it comes to translating another language. It won't make sense at all, plus you'll have a fun time typing whatever language that is into google."

Adrianna sighed. "Then I'm never going to figure out who wrote this and-"

"What's going on here?" asked Simon as he approached the table with Cameron.

"Adrianna has this mystery journal that she needs to translate and we can't even figure out which language it is in," explained Katie.

"Okay, why don't I give a try? I am quadrilingual after all," suggested Simon as he leaned over Adrianna to peer at the journal.

"Quadri what?" repeated Lily before shaking her head. "Ugh, you and your genius brain."

"It means that I can speak four languages," stated Simon while he scanned the writing. "Sometimes I wonder how you passed middle school."

"Hey shut it!" snapped Lily with half a smile and half an angry glare. "No one even uses that word. To speak two or more languages is called multilingual dumbass."

Simon laughed, "I don't know who you're calling dumbass, but that person certainly isn't me. Anyways Adrianna, you're in luck today because this is Russian and I actually know a bit of that- at least enough to translate a good chunk of your journal," he stated.

"Since when did you learn Russian?" asked Cameron and Lily at the same time. Both their faces displayed utter shock.

"Since my great grandmother grilled it into me ten years ago. You know how old people are with culture and tradition."

Katie shook her head while trying to keep in a giggle. "You guys are such idiots. Even I knew that Simon is one-sixth Russian," she said sarcastically.

"Anyways, we can meet up at the library when you have your free period," suggested Simon as he looked over to Adrianna. "It is easier that way because there wouldn't be any background commentary that would slow me down or would it be so loud."

Lily kicked Simon and Adrianna in the shin. "Wow you guys are such great friends for not inviting me to your translating session, but that's okay, I know you guys love me!"She screeched out. "I know you love me so much by going to Greg's party this FRIDAY!"

Adrianna and Simon shared each other a look.

"Um, I have stuff to do on-" started Simon

"Nonsense, clear your schedule!"

"Actually I can't-" Adrianna faltered mid sentence when her eyes caught sight of a tall blonde hair boy sauntering to their table. His emerald green eyes were focused straight at her.

"That my friend is Gregory Hills! Ooh I bet he's coming here to personally invite us, which is even better then crashing the party!" squealed Lily.

Adrianna turned to glare at Lily. "Were you seriously going to crash the party?"

Lily shrugged sheepishly. "Take a joke."

Before Adrianna could reply, the blonde Greek god stood in front of their table and flashed a smile at everyone. When he spoke, it was a deep rich baritone tone. "Hey guys, as I mentioned before there's a party at my house this Friday night," he drawled before glancing at Adrianna. "And I would like you to bring your beautiful friend with you."

Ah he's the smooth talker kind. Thought Adrianna, feeling somewhat amused and a little bit suspicious. In all her years that she dealt with these types of guys, they could either be the nicest or the worst of people.

"Of course we are coming," agreed Lily.

Gregory smiled. "I know you are, but I want to hear it out of your friend's mouth, who I don't believe I have the acquaintance of knowing yet," he paused and looked at Adrianna. "The name's Gregory, but most people call me Greg."

Adrianna flushed at his intense stare at her. "I-It's Adrianna," she stuttered.

"So would you like to come to my party on Friday?" he asked.

She bit the bottom of her lips. "I don't know..."

Gregory placed a hand on her cheek. "You should come, it will be fun. I promise."

After a couple of seconds of debating back and forth Adrianna finally nodded. "Alright fine, I will come," she agreed.

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A/N: Hey guys thank you for ever so patiently waiting for me to update! I know I keep promising to update sooner, but now that I started school again, I don't think I can do that. I'll probably be updating at least every two weeks, possibly longer. We'll see. Anyways I hope you like this chapter! It's unedited and a bit underdeveloped though.

Tell me how you like it! What do you think of Alexander's past? The flashback? Gregory? Vote, Comment and Fan!