Ashes

Twenty-Eight: Arrivals and Departures

Sunlight creeps over my face, illuminating my empty room and casting a warm glow on my face. As much as I try, I can't just ignore it and go back to sleep.

It's gotten harder and harder lately, both to fall asleep and return to it once I get there. There's always nightmares of losing people, always dreams of things I know I can't have, always thoughts that haunt me once I'm awake.

With a heavy sigh, I roll over and hope that pulling the sheets closer to my chin will help me fall back into slumber.

The door closes downstairs, signifying a certain someone's arrival, but don't really let myself open my eyes.

Echo's home. She didn't come home yesterday night, and as much as I'd love to make things right, I know she'll talk to me when she chooses to, not when I want to.

After a short moment of time that I assume she uses to remove her jacket and shoes, I hear her bare feet padding up the stairs in my direction. The door creaks open, and her eyes meet my half-open ones cautiously. The bed dips as she takes a seat near the backboard of the mattress frame, and I sit up slowly as she merely looks me over, gauging my reaction.

"You didn't come back," I mutter sleepily, rubbing my eyes with a yawn as I look at my older sister. Her hair is half-braided and still wet, and she's still wearing yesterday's clothes. Wherever she was had a shower, but not fresh clothes for her. I wonder where. (Hayden's, obviously—but I doubt she'll admit it.)

"I had some things to think about," she tells me quietly, and then averts her eyes from mine, choosing instead to focus on the fabric of her jeans as she chews on her lower lip.

"I'm sorry," she finally admits, looking back up at me with apology in her stare.

"For what? I'm the idiot who's being selfish,"

"No. You need this, Ari. I should've been more understanding. I can't come with you, but if this is what you want, then I'll be happy for you all the same. Just promise me you'll keep in touch?" she asks, her voice timid and generally uncharacteristic. I don't answer her for a few seconds, and then lean forward to hug her tightly.

Echo lets out a breath of relief and buries her face into my shoulder.

"Of course," I assure her, and she lets out a little laugh.

"I'm gonna miss you though, you idiot," she says, pulling away to punch my arm soundly. I let out a hiss of pain that's mostly exaggerated, laughing a little as we both just sit there in the morning sunlight, at peace once again.

"Brynn and Felix are coming with me," I tell her, my tone a bit more somber and expecting her to be the same. Instead, she merely raises an eyebrow and lets out a laugh.

"Good luck. Try not to let them kill each other," she teases, earning a chuckle and a grin.

We quickly decide to head out into town to get some food for the arrival of our parents, recruiting Titus over the phone. A lot of me worries about how my parents will react to me leaving right after being reunited with them. The truth is simply that I don't know if we really can be a family after all of this. It took me so long to come to terms with my mother's death, and Ezekiel is less my father and more some ghost of a past I never knew. My family was always far from perfect, and then finding out that half of that family wasn't yours at all is even more world-shaking.

Titus meets us outside, in front of our house, but my attention is far from my brother.

It's been two weeks since I've last seen him, and his eyes are still the same stormy blue even from across the gravel path. His hair is unkempt, his beat-up leather jacket over his sagged shoulders as he fiddles with the keys to his house. There's a few bags of groceries lying spread out near the door, and as he reaches back to grab them, he realizes I'm there. Kyros.