Falling Into Sunday

24- I Am Forgiving

“Hey, Venice,” My dad is shaking me awake on Wednesday morning.

My eyes are heavy with sleep deprivation because I was up until two in the morning talking to Benson on the phone but I open them anyway and turn to look at my dad. He never wakes me up so I assume that whatever he has to tell me is pretty important. “Hmm?” I murmur.

“Eli’s home,” He announces quietly. “He’s downstairs.”

I sit up, now a little bit more awake than I was a few moments ago. “He is? Does Emmett know?”

He shakes his head. “He’s still sleeping.”

I groan and stand up out of my bed so that I can go downstairs and see that Eli is home with my own eyes. “Okay,” I mumble as we both walk out of the room. I’m wearing shorts and an oversized t-shirt as pajamas so I’m decent as I trot down the stairs while simultaneously throwing my hair into a messy bun to get it out of my face.

Just as my father said, Eli’s standing there in the living room, leaning against the back of the couch and he looks up at me when he hears me coming down the stairs. He looks at me with apprehension as if I have a reason to attack him or something. I mean, just because everyone else knows about what happened doesn’t mean that I’m even more angry at him than I have been since everything happened. The person he should be looking at with apprehension is Emmett and luckily, he’s not awake yet.

“Hey,” He breathes.

“I’ll leave you two alone,” My dad announces before walking back upstairs. “Keep things civil.”

I know that I should be mad at him. I should just go wake up Emmett and feed him to the dogs because that’s what Eli deserves but I can’t do it. The only thing that I feel when I see my brother standing there in front of me is relief that he isn’t gone forever. It was only about half of a week that he’d been gone but I’m just so glad that he came back.

I step forward and run towards him. He flinches, probably thinking that I’m going to physically attack him or something, but I don’t. I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him into a tight hug. I’m not forgiving him for what he did or anything, but he is still my brother and I really didn’t want him to run away in the same way that I did. He did a really terrible thing and, although I used to be fairly confident that I’d never be able to forgive him, I’m beginning to see a future where we can possibly rekindle some kind of sibling relationship. Obviously, it won’t ever be as strong as it used to be but I don’t want to lose him forever.

“I’m so glad that you’re back, El,” I breathe into his shoulder.

“Uh… you are?” He wonders, confused as to why I’m not being so hostile towards him like I usually am.

“Yeah,” I sigh, pulling away from him, looking at the cable box under the TV for the time. “Why are you showing up at five in the morning though?”

“It’s a long story,” He informs me. “To be completely honest, I wasn’t expecting such a… warm welcome.”

“It won’t last long,” I inform him. “My anger is blinded by my relief that you’re not completely gone. Wait down here, we’ll go to breakfast. I expect an explanation and we need to talk.”

“Sure…” He says, not even trying to hide how confused he is by my reaction to him being home.

I go back upstairs and take a shower before I get dressed for the day and while I do, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to talk to Eli about and why I’m not being meaner to him. I mean, just because he disappeared for a few days doesn’t mean that I’m going to automatically forgive him or anything.