Falling Into Sunday

2- I Am New

“How did your evening go?” Emmett asks me when I enter Chamberlin’s Music Store at 8:52 that night.

I smile at him. “I got a lot done. I went to the school and enrolled so that I start on Monday and I also avoided anybody that would recognize me. I know that when people find out that I’m back, I’ll get swarmed with people and I just want to postpone that as long as possible. Have you talked to Eli or our parents?”

He shakes his head. “Nope. I’ll let you surprise them if that’s what you want to do.”

“Thanks,” I sigh. “Do you think you’ll get away with leaving a few minutes early?”

Emmett nods. “Yeah, I’m closing tonight anyway so it’s fine.”

I watch as he clocks out and locks the cash register. I carry my suitcase out to his car and after he locks the store door behind us, he drives us through Great Falls towards the house that I’ve been dreading. I don’t know how he convinced me to stay at the house, but I’m really starting to regret that decision now but I know that it’d be hard to get Emmett to let me take it back.

“Do you think that they’ll hate me?” I ask my brother. “For leaving like I did?”

He shakes his head. “Not at all. I mean, I guess Mom was a bit aggravated, but you know how Mom is. I think it helped with Dad’s election though, so she wasn’t too mad about it.”

“I’m glad to be of service,” I respond dryly. Our dad is the governor of Montana, which is pretty cool I guess, but it’s some pretty intense pressure when elections come around for the candidates’ families and my mom was a stickler for a good appearance, which was annoying all of the time.

“Hey, you know Dad never thought of it like that,” He defends our dad. “Mom milked the sympathy vote for all that it was worth, but Dad blew off all of his debates and everything to help look for you.”

“Right,” I sigh. “Well, I didn’t miss Mom too much, so I guess that makes us even.”

It doesn’t make us even because of what she did, but I don’t tell Emmett that because that’s one of the things that I don’t want Emmett to ever know. “Mom and Dad aren’t even home right now though, they’re in Helena for some conference or something like that,” Emmett adds.

“So it’s just you and Eli at the house?” I wonder.

He nods. “Yep. Your room is still just the same though, so you can stay in there.”

“Great,” I sigh, leaning my forehead on the window. “This is just going to be so much fun.”

“I just can’t believe that you’re back,” Emmett grins beside me. “Just like that.”

“Just like that,” I shrug. “I missed you and I just couldn’t stay away any longer.”

“That’s nice of you,” He laughs, obviously not believing me. He shouldn’t believe me, because I didn’t come back for him. I mean, I did miss him like crazy, but I had other reasons that I choose not to think about right now.

The house is just a ten minute drive away and we ride the rest of the way in silence, just enjoying each other’s company for the first time in seven months. I try to think about how I’m going to deal with Eli when I see him, but I decide that it’s too stressful, so I’ll just wing it when our reunion happens. I haven’t talked to him since everything happened so I don’t know how he’s feeling towards me. I know exactly how I feel towards him though; I hate him. I feel bad about hating him because he’s my brother, but I do. I hate him so much.

“Eli’s home,” Emmett announces, seeing his car in the driveway. “You can go on in, I’ll get your suitcase.”

“You’re the best,” I grin at him before getting out of the car and I start on my way inside. The door is unlocked, so I go inside and I leave the door open for when Emmett comes in with my suitcase.