This morning, I spent at least an hour next to Thomas, both of us awake. All we did was smile and kiss and whisper and those three things were just perfect.

Until Thomas randomly started panicking and brought up the fact he wanted to jump out of my window.

Key word, randomly. I was confused as hell.

But apparently, it was because he realized he forgot to move his letters. They were still in the drawer, not locked or hidden at all.

I assured him that his grandparents have only been here for a day, and that they won't immediately go through his stuff, but that didn't help. He was stressing.

So now he's attempting to sneak his letters away as I go to the grocery store to get both of us some breakfast. It's almost noon and everyone else in the house has already eaten. We want to eat something nicer than just sandwiches anyway, so I'm getting some tasty things.

I'm walking through the aisles, scanning the shelves. Thomas loves croissants so I take a few fresh ones. Then I turn into the fruit section, and nearly collide with a man standing in front of the apples.

"Excuse me." I politely step around him.

As I reach for a mango (Thomas loves those, too), I feel his gaze linger on me. So I glance up. Then freeze.

It's Thomas's grandpa.

I haven't seen him in at least two years, but I still recognize his balding head. The few thin, gray hairs on top of it. A plenty amount of wrinkles. Neatly ironed button-up.

"You're Viviette, aren't you?" And his disgust is already clear.

It feels like a punch in the stomach, coming across these kind of people. It's not the first time, but it still hurts every time. And it's not just Thomas's grandparents. There's more people around who don't like my nor my family's presence in the US.

The man, Linus, looks up and down at me. "You're Thomas's girlfriend," he adds.

I nod, mouth dry. "Yes," I confirm. It's almost a whisper.

He picks up an apple, turning it in his hands as if he's inspecting how good it is. Yet he keeps talking to me, even with his eyes somewhere else. "The one who replaced Teresa." A low chuckle. "You think you can fill her shoes?"

My cheeks flush with embarrassment I'm not supposed to have. Looking down to avoid his now piercing gaze, I mutter, "They, um, they broke up a whole ago. I'm not—"

"I know they did." He snorts. I shrink at the sound. He does that every time I see him. "And I also know Teresa was a good, respectable girl from a nice family, unlike you."

A lump forms in my throat. I struggle finding the right words— or literally just my voice. I don't know what to tell him. Nothing is going to change his mind, no matter how nice I am. So I might as well be rude and start yelling at him.

I don't, though. I can't. My mouth won't let me. Neither will my mind. 

"I... I just want him to be happy," I then stammer.

He steps closer, blocking my path. I can only walk back now, but that'd be the exit of the store. I'm not leaving because some old man is insulting me.

But neither do I have the courage to push him out of the way. Or to slip past him.

"Mark my words, this won't last. Thomas needs a real woman, not some foreigner. He'll soon realize that."

"I—"

He cuts me off, tone harsh and growing louder. "You think you can come in this country and take whatever you want? You don't belong here."

Tears begin to well up my eyes. I do belong here. I've lived here my whole life. Mom has lived here since she was eight, and met Indie. I'm not doing 'whatever I want'.

"You don't belong to this family and certainly not to my grandson. Go back to where you came from."

The words sting deeply in my chest, blocking my windpipe for a good minute. In that minute, he turns away and walks off. Leaves me with my bag clutched to my chest, trying hard not to let the tears fall.

It hurts, even though I know he's not right. Thomas has been around me my whole life. Linus's few words won't change anyone's mind. But they do hurt. They always will.

Quickly, I finish off my round in the store. I make sure not to pass him. When I leave, I don't even have everything I originally wanted.

Though right now, all I want is to go home. So I do that.

Go back to where you came from, his words still repeat in my mind by the time I slam the front door shut. I press my eyes shut, too, and then the tears start falling.

"Vi? That you?" As always, Minho's voice echoes through the house.

Whenever he's home and someone else gets home, he yells for the person who he thinks it is. And he's always right.

"Yeah!" I yell back, my voice hoarse and cracky.

I hear footsteps down the stairs. They're fast. Minho never walks up or down the stairs in a normal pace; it's him.

His eyes peek around the corner of the hallway. "Is everything oka— woah, clearly not." He steps closer to me. "What happened?"

I bury my head in my hands in an attempt to calm down, but it doesn't really work.

Three seconds later, my head is buried in Minho's shoulder.

"What happened?" He repeats, awkwardly patting my back at first. Then he actually squeezes me close. "Did Thomas break up with you— no, not possible. Hm... another body? You saw an old person eating alone? Stray dog? Or did a bird—"

"No." I shake my head. With a sniff, I pull away from him. Wipe some tears off my cheeks and sniff another time. "I came across Thomas's grandfather in the grocery store. He— he told me all kinds of things. That we need to go back to our country and—" I take a deep breath, trying to calm down. I'm stammering so much that my words come out sloppy and not very understandable.

Minho takes ahold of my shoulders firmly, eyes boring through mine. He looks like he's about to say something, but changed his mind, and turns around instead. "FINN!" He screams.

"WHAT?!"

"GO STRETCH AS IF YOU'RE ABOUT TO HAVE A BOXING MATCH!" Minho yells. "BECAUSE YOU ARE!"

"WHAT?!" again.

"WITH A GRANDPA!"

"WHAT?!" for the third time.

Fast, loud footsteps down the stairs before Finn appears in front of us. "A grandpa?"

"Thomas's was rude to our little sister and discriminated our whole family, so get ready."

"Little sister?" Offended, I cross my arms. "I'm your big sister."

And his hands are on my shoulders again. "Viviette, in another universe, I'm the oldest sibling, and you are one hundred percent the youngest one. But that is not the point right now. We are going to beat this man up—"

"Not everything has to be ended with violence," I say. "Nothing is going to change his mind, not even a black eye."

"Maybe a crocusion will," Minho replies.

"...a what?"

"Concussion, Minho," Finn says. "It's called a concussion."

I blink. "How did you think of crocusion—"

"Whatever, whatever." Minho waves it off. "Can we please give him a concussion? I'm sick of this man. I don't know how my best friend shares genes with him."

"Your best friend? He's my best friend."

"No, he's your boyfriend. And maybe I was talking about Mango, not Thomas."

"Mango doesn't share the same genes with—"

"Whatever," Minho says again.

"We're not beating a grandpa up, Minho," Finn finally says.

Minho throws his hands in the air. "Hello? He told us to go back to our own country! He can go back to where he came from! AKA his mother's womb! Except his mom is dead, so he should fall dead, too," he threatens.

A tiny little smile forms on Finn's face at that. I can't resist smiling, too.

"Or we tell Thomas," Minho then suggests.

"What's that gonna do? Make him feel even worse about this?"

"No. He'll know they hurt Vi. Thomas hurts them back twice as bad. In fact, he also hurts people who are nice to Vi. Look at Gally, for example. He was nice. What happened? Oh, yeah, Thomas punched him in the face at seven years old. Now Thomas is almost nineteen so he's got a lot more strength and he'll likely murder his grandfather."

Minho keeps on ranting and ranting. Finn rolls his eyes. My smile brightens, even though my cheeks flush into a deep red color.

"Speaking of murders, sooner or later, you find out Thomas killed Mr. Leadford and Mary and Vince because they are the parents of one of my old friends. The one who was rude to Vi, you know? He gave him payback."

What.

"Thomas isn't the murderer," I tell Minho. "I am one hundred percent sure."

"Well, whoever it is, might be protecting Vi, unless Mr. Leadford and the son of Mary and Vince have hurt others."

What. 

"Since when are you so smart?" Finn asks.

"Since I won the swimming race," Minho replies dryly.

Now it's my turn to roll my eyes. "It can't be right. Mr. Keller wasn't my enemy. Mom's boss wasn't either."

"Well, you also didn't like his and Mom's decision of allowing Aris in our house," Minho points out.

"But now I do like it. Aris is my friend."

Finn steps closer. There's a sudden serious look on his face, and he begins whispering, "It's him."

"Who?"

"Aris," Finn mutters. He looks around in case anyone is eavesdropping. "It's him. He's the killer."

I shake my head. "No, he's not."

"Yes, he is," my brother replies. "I've been thinking about it since the beginning and everything fits. He shows up. Not even a week later, the first murder happens." A pause. "Aris and I often talk about stuff. I ask him about school, et cetera. He said he liked it, except for PE. He only joined one class and then left because the teacher didn't allow him to wear long sleeves."

"No," I repeat. "Mr. Keller was a nice person. A good person. Do you know what he did for Newt—"

"He got the wrong one. The wrong teacher. There's multiple elderly PE teachers at your school. Mr. Wilson is the one who actually commented on Aris's arms. I remember him. He wasn't nice."

I want to say 'no' again. It isn't Aris. It can't be.

"Mom's boss is controlling and annoying. You've heard Mom's stories, about the fact he doesn't help his clients in the right way. He must've neglected Aris."

No.

"Mary and Vince because their son laughed at you when you convinced Minho to sit with you, right? Aris must've killed his parents for payback. And the thing you and Thomas talked about, with the poison? That was to take suspicions off himself. Mr. Leadford because he hurt you, Vi."

I shake my head. "No. He's my friend. He said I'm his greatest friend. I ask him about school, too. Why would he tell you but not me?"

"Because you're the one who he wants to protect," Finn finishes.

"That boy is a killer?" I'm whisper-screaming now. "Come on, Finn."

"Everything makes sense," Finn responds. "All of it. He's the only one connected to Mom's boss."

"Mom is, too," Minho comments.

"Yeah, but the other things don't make sense for Mom."

Everything is like a punch in the gut. Knocks the air and common sense out of me for a while.

It can't be Aris. I don't want it to be Aris. He's my friend. He deserves a nice life. He was slowly getting a nicer life.

If the police find out, his life will be ruined forever.

"We can't tell anyone. We can convince him to stop," I say. "He's... messed up in the head. He doesn't know what he's doing."

"He damn well knows," Minho snaps. Poof, his happy mood is gone. "And this, people, is why you should listen to me when I say it's not a good idea to bring a random mentally ill kid in our house."

"Shut up."

I run a hand down my face and repeat, "We can convince him to stop. We can carefully start the conversation. The three of us, so he won't try to hurt anyone."

And if Finn's theory is incorrect, I feel sorry for bothering Aris with it.

☯︎︎

They've been yelling for half an hour.

Well, Thomas, mostly.

I was about to ring the doorbell when I heard him completely burst out on his grandparents, and then I sat down on the pavement to wait.

Plus, I'm just way too curious again.

So far, I've figured out that Thomas's grandfather mentioned the store incident. Thomas went mad. So mad that Minho's words about Thomas killing Mr. Leadford didn't even sound that weird, because he's currently just so freaking angry. I've never seen him this angry.

He's also yelling about the letters. His yells at me for reading them are just babytalk compared to this.

His grandparents indeed somewhat inspected the whole room, read quite a lot of letters, and then confronted Thomas about thoughts he had at different ages.

But, once again, Thomas started yelling right back and he has now overtopped them. He's the only one hearable.

When the front door gets ripped open, I jump up. Two suitcases fly down the little stairs in front of the house. "GET OUT!" It's clear his grandpa gets pushed outside, and his grandmother follows with a hurried look. "I don't want to see your faces ever again! GO!"

It's too insane for words. Watching grandparents get pushed out of a house with suitcases and all.

But it happens right in front of my eyes.

The door slams shut the second all their belongs are outside. They stumble down the stairs, nearly falling over. Then my eyes meet Linus's.

"All because of you," he snarls as he takes his wife's arm, pulling her away.

Once I've recovered from all the sudden action, I ring the doorbell, kind of nervous for what I'm about to see. Whenever Thomas is angry, he's immediately angry at everything in the world.

That's what happened during our fight a few weeks ago. We were already pissed at each other because of the disagreements about the killer, and then he got even angrier because of the letters.

"I TOLD Y—"

"It's me," I say fast. "Viviette. But I can leave if you w— alright."

He's got me pulled inside the house before I can finish my sentence, immediately burying me in his arms. "Are you okay?"

"Are you?"

"I asked you first."

"Yes, I'm alright," I assure. Slowly, I pull away. Cup his face to look at him. "Are you?"

"Just a little... irritated."

"I noticed. I was outside for a while. Heard a lot of yells."

He nods. "Sorry 'bout that. They just needed to go. I hate them even more now."

"I don't think they're coming back, so that's good... I guess." I do my best to smile at him.

Then he starts smiling, too, even though his cheeks are still red from anger. And then a chuckle leaves his mouth. "It was really crazy, wasn't it?"

"Yeah." I laugh against his chest.

Eventually, our laughs begin to fade and his face fills with concern another time. "Are you really okay? Everything he said was ridiculous."

"I'm okay," I tell him again. "Really."

About the store thing, at least.

The thing about Aris being the murderer made me forget about Thomas's grandpa in the first place, and now, that is also a bigger worry than what happened in the store.

"Finn said something," I announce hesitantly. "I think you're going to want to know."