Unravelling

Chapter 54 - Traditions

A wave of emotion washes over me as I step inside our house.

I have not really thought about missing my home while I was away. I have been too busy with the novelty of being in Chicago and spending time with Sean and Jordan to feel even remotely homesick. But now that I am engulfed by the familiar smell of our house, it is completely overwhelming.

Alex has let go of my hand once he stepped across to threshold and almost immediately, I stopped walking. Now I am standing only a foot or so inside the house, just taking it all in. The messy pile of jackets to my right. Haphazardly discarded shoes on my left. The lamp on the high ceiling with three light bulbs in it, one of which has been flickering ever so slightly for as long as I can remember.

And, of course, the chipped banister. A result of one of Aidan's infamous hissy fits where he threw a wrench after Jack, who luckily managed to duck away just in time. The banister was not so lucky, however, and there has been about a thumb sized piece of it missing ever since. That was about two years ago, I think.

A small smile flits across my face at the thought. This is what it must mean to have a home. A place filled with lots of memories, somewhere with a distinct and familiar smell. A sanctuary that fills you with a comforting feeling. Somewhere to feel safe and protected.

I wonder if my brothers felt the same about their house on the East Coast that they left all these years ago. Now that I am back home, I am convinced that it must be incredibly difficult to leave such an important place behind on purpose. How I could ever run away from this is now suddenly a bit of a mystery to me.

"Hey, troublemaker, welcome back," Jack's voice pulls me out of my thoughts.

I shake my head to clear it and to focus on the presence and then notice that Jack is standing pretty much right in front of me. I haven't even heard him walk up to me. Everybody else seems to have disappeared in other parts of the house because it is just the two of us in the hallway now.

I have to lift my head way up to look at his face and I do so a bit hesitantly. His voice sounded friendly enough, but it is usually the eyes that tell the real story. My heart leaps with relief when our eyes meet and I detect no bad feelings in my brother's dark ones.

"Hi, Jack," I say a bit shyly.

"Hi, Jack? Is that all? No hug? No tears?" he says with a slightly teasing smile.

I express my disbelief at what he just said by wordlessly raising an eyebrow. When he just gives me a weird look back, I decide to vocalize my confusion.

"Why would there be tears?"

"What? Are you not happy to see me again? Not emotional at all, after being gone for more than week?"

Jack graces me with a wide-eyed look that borders on dramatic, which is totally unlike him, and I cannot help but let out a small chuckle at his antics.

"Of course I am happy to see you. But are you happy to see me?" I chance to ask the one question that has been on my mind with regards to all of my siblings.

"I am very happy to see you, ace! Why do you even have to ask that?"

"So you're not...mad at me?" I ask carefully.

"Come here, you silly girl," Jack says and reaches out to pull me into him.

I instinctively wrap my arms around his waist and hug him with all my might. Jack rubs his hands up and down my back and I literally melt into his comforting embrace. I never even knew that his hugs could feel so nice. That is probably because we don't exchange these kinds of affections very often. There isn't really much of a reason in our normal, everyday lives for me to hug him – and vice versa.