In that moment, I forgot all those days when I cursed him for leaving our family, for leaving me with unanswered questions and ignored calls that went straight to voicemail.
I soaked into his warm embrace, not wanting to let it go. The hug felt familiar to me, and I almost believed that four years had changed nothing. But it had, and so I let myself out of his hold, wiping the fallen tears on my cheeks with the back of my hand.
"What the hell are you doing here?" he asked, his voice so light from surprise it was barely a whisper. "How did youâhow did youâ"
"I drove," I said simply. Then he stared at me for a while, before scooping me into one more hug briefly, as if he couldn't get enough of it.
"I missed you so much," I found myself saying once we had let go again. He didn't answer, but from the look in his eyes, I knew he felt the same way. Or at least, I hoped he felt the same way.
We decided that it would be best if we parked our car first before going inside and catch up on our lost years. My hands were shaking when I parked Mom's car, but I managed to do it without hurting anyone.
I was surprised to see how neat the house was once I got inside, remembering how he had never bothered to make up his bed until Leann yelled at him. But here, everything was in place. The living room was small, and it was connected to both the dining room and the small kitchen. There was a room and a bathroom, and a set of stairs that led to the second floor. It wasn't a very spacious house, but it was homey enough.
Picture frames filled most of the walls in the living room, and I was surprised to see them filled with pictures of our family. Though, on the other side of the wall, I saw faces of strangers, which sparked my curiosity.
When I turned around after studying the pictures on the walls, Tony was stood on the other side of the room, just staring at me.
"It's pretty neat," I commented softly. "What a surprise."
He let out a chuckle and sat down on the couch, gesturing for me to come. "Yeah, it's all Kate's work."
"Kate?" I asked curiously, walking up to the couch and sitting next to him.
His face tinted with pink, just slightly. "My girlfriend. She's back in her hometown for the holidays, though."
I held in an amused smile. "Your girlfriend." He shrugged. "You have a girlfriend." He nodded, and I finally let the smile out. "So things have... really changed a lot."
He took a deep breath and sat up straight, entwining his fingers together in his lap. "I have so many questions."
"So do I."
He smiled at me, but it looked slightly sad. "You first."
"How are you?" I asked the first question that came to mind, because there were too many of them swirling inside my head. "How have you been?"
"I've been okay," he said, giving a light shrug. "Done with college last year, now working at this fancy company owned by my friend's dad. He had a pull and I wasn't about to waste a chance."
"What do you do? Pick up trash bags and clean mugs?" I couldn't help but tease, and he chuckled.
"More or less, yeah." He looked at me. "And you?"
"I'm doing fine," I half-lied. "It's my last year of high school, if you didn't know. So... I have a lot of decisions to make. About the future."
"I know," he said, "that it's your last year of high school. Of course I know. What kind of brother I am?"
Tony apparently noticed the mistake in his rhetorical question the same time I did, because he immediately sealed his mouth shut and looked away from me.
"The kind who... doesn't call his sister for years for no apparent reason?" I asked quietly.
He opened his mouth. "I'm sorryâ"
"I'm not mad at you," I said. "Not anymore. I'm really, really happy to finally see you. That's the only thing I'm feeling right now," I told him. "But I just have so many questions nobody ever bothered to answer, and I'm here now to beg for the answers."
"I think about you every day, Hannah," he finally said after a long pause. "I think about the day I left and most of the time I regret itâ"
"So why did you?" I couldn't help but cut him off, "leave us, I mean. Did Mom and Dad kick you out? Were they that mad at you for getting drunk at a party that night?"
He looked at me as if he was wondering if I was crazy. "Who the fuck cares about me getting drunk? I got you into a car accident because of my stupidâ"
I balled my hands into a fist and let my nails dig into my palms, hoping that it would lessen the pain I felt inside my chest at the thought of the accident and who had caused it. I knew that we had to talk about itâbecause that night was what had caused everything that had gone wrongâbut I wished he wouldn't bring it up, because now thoughts of Jonah were threatening to come back into my head, and I didn't want to think about him at all.
"âand they were mad at me about it, of course they were. They were furious, Hannah," he spoke, but I cut him off again.
"So they kicked you out."
He sighed and shook his head. "They never kicked me out."
"What?"
"I kicked myself out." He hesitated for a while. He looked down at his hands. "At first, they wouldn't let me into your room after I'd been discharged. They were so mad at meâas they should have been. I begged every day to be let in, to just see you. Then that day you woke up. And they told me you couldn't feel half your bodyâ"
His voice had trembled until he cut himself off with what sounded like a pained gasp.
"You were paralyzed and at that stage, the doctors couldn't tell us if you'd ever recover. I never asked to see you again, because how could I? So I told them I was leaving and that there was nothing they could do to stop me. And they didn't stop me." He swallowed, keeping his eyes away from me. "I told them not to ever bring me up again. I told them not to answer questions if you had any. I told them to let me disappear. They agreed, and so I left."
"All that just because of one fucking night where you got drunk and let me drive us both into a car accident?"
He looked up at me. Tears were running freely down his cheeks, and his lips were visibly trembling. "You almost died that night, Hannah, and it was all because of me. I couldn't see you without wanting to kill myself, and it still killed me when I left, but at least I didn't have to sit you through the torture of seeing the asshole who nearly killed you."
"Sit me through the torture?" I asked incredulously. "Do you have any idea what your leaving had left me with? Torture, Tony!"
He chose to stay silent.
"I had nightmares. I woke up in the middle of the night screaming out your name. Every year at the night of Thanksgiving I locked myself in my bedroom calling your number in tears and you never picked up," I told him. "You left me thinking that you had packed your shit and flew because you hated me, because you were disgusted by the thought of seeing the sister who couldn't do one simple job of driving you home and almost killed you instead."
He shook his head furiously. "I could never hate you. It wasn't your fault. You were thirteen. You shouldn't even have had that job. I shouldn't have asked you to do that."
"Yeah, you shouldn't have, because I wasn't capable of driving without nearly killing both of us. I probably still am not."
"Okay, so we both are blaming our own selves for what happened that night," he said, putting his hands on my shoulder and forcing me to look up at his face. "I can't tell you to stop blaming yourself, because you'll still blame yourself anyway, and you can't tell me to stop feeling guilty, because if it weren't for my recklessness, nothing would have happened. And maybe it was both of our faults, but you're here now and I'm sorry." He cupped my jaw with his palms and wiped the tears on my cheeks with his thumbs. "I am sorry for everything I didn't know I had put you through. I missed you, I love you, and I'm sorry that you thought that I didn't."
He pulled me into his arms in the middle of his sentence, and I couldn't hold the tears. I thought I had finally run out of them, but apparently not. I felt some of the weight lifting off from my shoulders as he held me.
"I love you too," I said, "and I'm sorry for that night."
"You have nothing to be sorry for," he said softly. "I'm sorry for not being a better brother. I swear I'll make up for all these years to you."
I nodded. "All's forgiven." I pulled away. "But I still have more questions to ask."
He smiled and wiped the tears on my cheeks with his thumbs. "I know you do."
"But we have the rest of the lifetime to get my answers, right?" I asked him. "You're not leaving me anymore after this, are you?"
"If that's okay with you," he said timidly, and I just nodded. It was still a lot to comprehend; the fact that I was here with my brother after being apart forever was pretty overwhelming to me. There were still many things that needed to be fixed between the two of us, but we could deal with that with time. We still had a lifetime to spend as a family again. But today, today was just us, reuniting, and that was all that mattered. Besides, I'd missed him too much to even think about anything else.
I rested my heavy head against his shoulder and he squeezed the upper part of my arm comfortingly. "You look tired. How long was the drive?" he asked.
"I don't know, probably hours longer than it was supposed to be," I said. "I don't usually drive."
"You don't drive?" he asked, surprised. I shook my head. "Then how did youâwhose car did you drive?"
"Mom's," I told him. "Mom, Dad and Cole went to grandma's before picking up Leann from the airport, probably earlier today."
He paused and pulled away to look at me. "Don't tell me you didn't tell them you were coming here."
I lifted my shoulders weakly. "I found your old address and acted on impulse. Drove there, met your weird friends, got your new address, and now I'm here."
He groaned out loud. "You turned off your phone too, didn't you." I responded with a sheepish smile. "Get off this couch and give your parents a call, will you?"
I laughed when he stood up and threw a small pillow at me. He walked into the kitchen and asked, "Does jasmine tea sound good? Kate's obsessed with tea we have our cupboard filled with, like, three hundred different varieties of tea."
"It sounds awesome," I told him, watching as he disappeared into the thin wall that separated the living room from the kitchen.
He turned around before he fully disappeared, and paused right there, just staring at me.
"What?"
He smiled. "Nothing. I just missed you a lot."
I smiled back. "Right back at you."
I took out my phone and hesitated before turning it on, waiting patiently as the screen lit up. Within short minutes, it blew up like a fucking explosion. Once it had stopped ringing from text messages and voicemails, I finally looked through the unread messages.
Mom: Where did you go?
Mom: Did you take my car?
Mom: Why did you take my car and where the hell are you driving to?
Mom: Hannah? Pick up your phone and tell me where you are right now.
Jonah: Your parents are freaking out. Where are you?
Mom: Why aren't you answering your phone???
Mom: When you get back here you are so grounded.
Mom: Honey, please tell me you're alright.
Leann: I'm finally home and you're missing. Where the fuck are you?
Gina: I WOKE UP TO THE SOUND OF YOUR MOTHER CRYING TO ME ON THE PHONE ASKING WHERE YOU ARE. Are you okay? Give me a call asap and tell me what's wrong. Love you.
Dad: Pick up your phone or we're calling the police.
Jonah: Tell me you're okay.
I read through what felt like hundreds of other messages, deciding to ignore the voicemails. After a while, I finally took a deep breath and dialed Dad's number.
I closed my eyes once the call was picked up, bracing myself for the hell I had set upon myself.
"Hi, Dad..."
[]
Tony had to get on the phone and convince our parents that they didn't need to drive all the way here to get me.
My brother promised that he would take me home as soon as possible, but I didn't feel like going home. I didn't feel like facing my mom's wrath after the whole I'm-so-glad-my-daughter-is-okay episode, but most of all, going back home meant that I had to face Jonah too, and I didn't feel like doing that.
Tony took me to the guest room and told me to take a nap, so I did. It felt nice to have a restful sleep after the rough night and the unusual morning I'd had, and I had been tired enough that my two-hour sleep had passed smoothly without a nightmare or even any kind of dream at all.
Once I had woken up from my nap, I just lay there on the single bed, twirling the phone that had gone silent in my hand. Before I knew it, I was playing the voicemails Jonah had left for me, and I held my breath as I listened to his voice.
"Hannah," he said quietly, hoarsely. "I'mâI..." he cut himself off and sighed. "Where are you?"
"Your parents are freaking out," he said on a different voicemail. "I'm freaking out."
"Where are you, where are you, where are you," he repeated over and over again. "Are you okay? Please tell me that you are. Please call me. Or don't. Just call your parents. Anyone. Tell us you're okay."
"My head's filled with thoughts of you being hurt in the middle of nowhere and I'm not fucking okay," he said, his tone frustrated and pained. "I can't lose you like that so please tell me I'm not losing you like that."
I wiped my eyes and played another message. "I need to know if you're okay." I heard the faint sound of Daisy's cries in the background, and Jonah stopped talking as he tried to shush her. "Fuck, fuck, I can't do this. Stop fucking crying. Fucking stop it." There was a grunting sound before he spoke, "I can't fucking do this, Hannah. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I loâ"
I pressed the end button before I could hear the rest of the message and put my palm against my chest, feeling the rapid beating of my heart matching the pace of my breathing. A part of me felt horrible for leaving him feeling like that, and the other part felt so much pain for just hearing his voice.
Why did it hurt so much?
No matter how many times I tried to tell myself that the only thing I should be feeling was happiness for the fact that I'd met Tony again, I still didn't feel completely okay. I couldn't forget the look on Jonah's face when I told him that I loved him, when he couldn't say it back to me. I couldn't forget how much it had hurt when he told me the truth, when I finally put things together and realized that he had been the cause of all thisâthat he was the reason why Tony had to leave me in the first place.
If it hadn't been him crashing into us, I wouldn't have almost "died", as my brother kept saying. Tony wouldn't have to feel so much guilt for making me drive him home. He wouldn't have left and everything would've been just fine.
At least, that was what I believed.
I shook my head and forced myself out of the bed, dragging myself toward the living room where Tony was vacuuming the floor. The sight made me smirk a little bit, remembering how he used to claim that he was allergic to all cleaning devices and that was why he refused to clean up the mess in his room. He glowered when he saw me staring at him amusedly.
"Laugh at me all you want," he said. "You should take a shower. I've picked out Kate's clothes you can use. We're leaving in an hour."
I unfolded my arms. "Leaving where?"
He turned off the vacuum cleaner and turned around to me. "You need to go home, Hannah," he said. "Your dad's still threatening to drive all the way here."
I rolled my eyes and jumped into the couch. Then, out of curiosity, I asked, "Do you talk to them a lot?"
"Hm?"
"Mom and Dad," I said. "Do you, like, occasionally call them or something?" I asked quietly.
Tony saw where I was going with the question. He slightly bit his lip before answering, "Every few months." I took a sharp intake of breath. "Just to make sure things are... alright."
I nodded. "Okay."
He sighed and sat down next to me. "I know you're mad that I never called you, and I'm sorry," he told me. "I have no excuse for that other than the fact that I'm a coward."
"It's fine," I told him. "What's past is past..." I hesitated, "right?"
He nodded. "There's no use in overthinking about it," he said. "Let's just live in the now, okay?"
"Yeah, you're right," I said, even though I wasn't believing it myself. "So, you're coming home with me?"
He smiled and nodded as a yes. "I'm coming home, with you. Just for holidays, but..." I launched into his arms mid-sentence, too giddy to contain myself, "I'm coming home," he continued with a light laugh.
I spent the next few hours telling my brother stories about everything he'd missed during the years he had gone, and he listened to me intently and laughed a few times with me when he heard how Cole, our little brother, had grown to be a smartass. I thought about how our family was going to be a complete family again, how that forgotten dining chair would finally enjoy its time out of the attic, and I tried to focus on everything that was slowly going right again in my life.
But then I thought about Jonah, and I wondered where everything would be going now after everything that had gone down between us, and I felt myself deflate a little bit.
I wish I knew where our train would be going after this.