I didn't want to remember anything else from that dinner. I was glad I couldn't see, because I was pretty sure Ash embarrassed himself like forty other times throughout the dinner. Why was he so awkward all of a sudden? Yes, meeting my parents was tough for a kid trying to join the Locusts, but still, he completely collapsed under the pressure.

Imagine how I felt trying to ask for him to stay the night. Thank the Heavens that my father offered the invitation before I formulated a plan to ask him.

"Stay the night?" my mother repeated with a hint of objection in her shrill voice. "Will his parents, I mean, his dad be okay with it?"

"My dad has been out of town the past couple of days at some Mayor's Convention in D.C. with the President. He comes back tomorrow."

"And how about your..."

My father cut my mother off. "It's okay Cara. I imagine his father won't want to be disturbed. And let's not press any further into the poor boy's past now. It's not our place."

My mother was silent for a bit, but I'm pretty sure a gasket was about to rupture in her head while she figured out what's at the bottom of this. My father, however, wisely figured out this was all a part of the initiation process.

"The guest rooms are currently unavailable I'm afraid," my mother added as she stood up from her chair. "Unless you sleep on the couch..."

"Za-Za has a spare roll-out bed beneath her own," my father added. "He can stay there."

"In the same room honey?" my mother gritted her teeth but sighed as she left the room. "I'll get the maid to clean up the mess."

And that's how fantastically awkward dinner went. My mom clearly didn't trust Ashton after vetting him. My father saw him as a new bargaining chip, and my sister was just there throwing in chides from time to time to make herself feel better.

It's times like these that I wished Noa was here. He would've made Ash feel a bit more welcomed. He had his ways of counteracting the stupidity of the rest of my family. Because, unlike the rest of his siblings, Noa was an assassin who was also beloved by many. There wasn't a day he didn't invite a friend over to the house. I missed him.

Anyway, Ash and I managed to escape the dining room and headed up to my room. Now, my room was pretty big, and I had the smallest room in the house. It could probably be a college dorm room that could house four people comfortably. My door was decorated with many signs to scare away visitors: "Mind Your Business," "Keep Out," "Leave Me Alone," etc. None of them worked. My parents always barged in without knocking. Lay would just open the door to mess with me by throwing a rotten tomato at me because she was my annoying older sister. When my older brother Ka was here, he'd kick down the door with a paint gun and start firing at me. Something about always being ready because you'll never know when an assassin might be out to get you. Let's just say, I was glad he wasn't here.

Once in my room, I felt my way around it. I'm a night walker so it wasn't hard. Turning on the light to go to the bathroom in my own house? Only noobs did that. I closed my eyes in the dark and felt my way everywhere.

Ashton whistled at the size of the room. "Wow, you even have your own balcony and private bathroom. You sure this isn't the master bedroom?"

"You should see my parents' room," I said reaching beneath my Queen-sized bed with a white veil hanging from golden embroidered branches wrapped around the frame of the bed. "You could park a bus inside it." I pulled out the bed beneath mine. A twin bed rolled out on wheels covered in a dark blue bedsheet with Black Widow in her auburn hair dressed in smoky gray tights holding a pistol.

Ashton must've noticed the posters on the wall of the ex-assassin as well and said, "You really have a thing for Black Widow. I think Miles Morales is better though. At least he has powers."

This argument again. Ka always made fun of me for liking "the weakest Avenger." But power doesn't always make a hero. It's how you use that power. And yes, Black Widow couldn't shoot laser beams, fly, or open portals to different dimensions, but she could still take out a target without anyone knowing she was even there.

Ash noticed I didn't respond right away, so he asked, "Why do you like her so much?"

I pulled a pillow out from a closet and tossed it on his bed. "Because my life is very much like hers. Raised to be a murderer. An assassin who dealt the end of people's stories. Yet, in the end, she still managed to die a hero."

I motioned towards the bathroom and stopped at the door. "I only wish for an ending as redeeming as hers. Now, I'm going to have a bath."

I could hear Ash swallowing his saliva from across the room. "Um, do you need help?"

If he wasn't so far, I would've slapped him. "I think I know my bathroom well enough to wash myself without seeing. Thanks for the offer though creep."

"Hey, I was just offering. We could've talked more about how Miles is still better than Black Widow. And I wouldn't have peeked at anything."

He stopped himself before he could sound even stupider. I went off to clean myself. As tempted as I was to rip off the blindfold and bathe with my eyes, I didn't feel the need to do so. Have you ever dipped yourself in a nice hot bubbly bath with your eyes closed and the aroma of vanilla in the air? Talk about stress release.

After I was done drying up, I put on my pajamas and left the room. Ash was standing by my dresser drawer browsing at my collection of photos portrayed in cheesy flowery frames from when I was younger.

Ash picked up a photo from the dresser and stared at it. "You...you look so happy in these photos."

I knew what photos he was looking at. It was photos of my brother Noa and I. He used to always play with me when I was younger. We were closer in age with him being the third oldest in the family. In fact, father asked Noa to train me to swing a sword and shoot a gun.

I remember my first lesson when I was five. He started me off with a water gun. If I managed to soak his shirt, he'd take me to this new summer carnival that opened up near the shore. I took him by surprise when I climbed up a tree and got him from above. The photo Ash was most likely staring at, was the results of my victory that day—us smiling in front of a clown while holding a pink and blue swirl of cotton candy each.

"Who is he?" Ash asked.

I walked towards my hamper to toss my clothes inside. I really didn't want to go down Noa lane. It always got me teary towards the end; and I didn't need to give Ash any ammunition he could use against me at school or while around Auntie.

"None of your concern," I said.

"Sorry," he put the photo back. "It's just, he seemed like he's the coolest person in your house...besides you of course."

Flattery doesn't work on me, no matter how much I was trying to hide my smile by heading over to my bed.

"I wish I could've met him," Ash said.

"Well you can't," I settled into my bed. "He's gone."

Ash walked over to his bed below mine. He settled in without showering or using the toilet or anything. How can one go to sleep without washing off the stains of the day?

"What happened to him?"

I killed him. Of course, I couldn't admit to that. Saying it would've made it seem all too valid.

"He died." I said.

"Was he a family member?" Ash asked. "Because I saw another picture of the same guy hung up in the dining room."

I almost forgot about that portrait. My parents had it done for his 13th birthday. It wasn't massive and would've probably gotten lost with all the other paintings of family members and the George Washington Crossing the Delaware that dominated one full wall. Whenever I ate in the dining room, I instinctively avoided looking at it. It always reminded me that Noa wasn't sharing a meal with me because I was a coward.

"He's—well was—my brother," I said as I snapped my fingers twice to turn off the lights.

Ash was quiet for a bit as he settled in his bed. In fact, he was silent for so long I thought he just decided to stop the conversation and head to sleep.

Just as I was about to close my eyes, I heard his hoarse voice say to me, "My mother was killed...she was killed by a gang member—a member from the Reapers."

The oxygen in the room had become stale. I felt myself catching my breath. My hand clutched to the pistol beneath my pillow. Ash's plan was to murder me in my own bed as retaliation for his mother's murder.

"But, thanks for your concern about me," he simply said with a voice of a puppy who had just been hit with a broom by its angry owner. "Goodnight."

I released my grip on the pistol. Ashton lost his mother because of my family. I didn't know what to say. If there was one thing I knew would not work, it was those casual words people throw out there because they felt the need to clear the awkward air. "I'm sorry," or "She's in a better place," doesn't work. Words can't bring back the dead or heal the pain. The only thing I ever wanted when Noa was gone was for someone to hold me. I only wanted someone to simply be there for me as my crutch. Many words are lost, but actions of endearment are healing.

If Ash was hurting like I was when I lost Noa, then he wanted what I wanted.

I pulled off my blankets and undid the veil hiding my bed from view. Ash was on his side, facing the door and shivering a bit beneath the thin blanket. I descended down to Ash's Twin bed. It was small, but so were we. It felt like I was stepping down from grace into the crater of painful pasts. I laid next to him and placed my hand on his upper-arm, where he had the tattoo of the Locust hidden beneath his long-sleeve shirt.

He stopped shivering and I heard him stifle a sniffle.

And we slept through the night while I kept my arm around his, anchoring onto his pain so that he wouldn't have to be burdened by it alone.

Because that's what true friends do.