Oh Brother (Completed)

Epilogue

Summertime for my family is the one and only time we are drawn back to our beach house in Malibu from every side of the country.

Four years ago I had stepped into the house after a long, grueling ten years of little to no contact with my five brothers. I'd been pushed to spend the summer with them after my mother's passing, but it had been the best decision I'd ever made.

My Senior year was a mess. Being at the beach house had given me a comfort and security that vanished the second I was thrusted into a large school in Pasadena. I'd wanted no more than to get through the year and get out; luckily I did just that. But in the process of doing so, I'd lost a lot. Hudson, who I'd grown extremely close to after our attack that summer, was all that I left high school with. Aden, my twin, upon arriving back home had completely iced me out. I no longer existed in his little world, and he made sure I was very much aware. He never spoke to me, never acknowledged my presence in any way. To this day I haven't as much as received a letter from him.

Damien and I hadn't lasted long into our Senior year. Phil and Buck had said it was because I'd grown out of him; that as I grew stronger, found the strength within myself, that I didn't need him to share in the trauma anymore. It almost seemed as if he'd forcefully pushed away from me a few months in. He started icing me out, falling back into depressive episodes, and all together just stopped caring.

It had broken my heart, but he'd promised me that it was for the best that I move on. That he'd be okay, he just needed a little more time than I did to try and figure out what the hell he wanted in life; apparently I hadn't been it.

College hadn't been much better than high school. It'd been a whirlwind of parties, guys, and friends that came and went. The only constant was Nix and Sam, and even then whenever they weren't around, I barricaded myself into my room and broke down.

Yet, despite all the heartache and struggles we all endured on different sides of the continent, we all came together every summer. But this summer, this summer was different.

Phil had gotten married last fall and just welcomed his first baby boy into the family. Buck had finally pulled himself a girlfriend, as did Aden. Hudson and Cady had married in January and were pregnant with their first. Sam had been seeing a girl off and on but she hadn't become serious enough for him to bring her here.

Then there was Nix and me. I'd be a lie to say that we'd completely stayed away from one another in college. We'd had a few one-night stands but had agreed to leave them as just that. But just before I graduated a few weeks ago, I'd spent the night in his room and he'd asked me what my plans for the future were, and of course, if he was a part of it.

"You're not going in?" Nix asked now, draping his arm loosely over my shoulder as we stared at the beach house in front of us.

We'd been the first to get here and I had contemplated the idea of just driving back to LA before the rest of the family could show, but had ultimately decided that I couldn't do Sam and Nix like that. We'd come together and if I took the car, they'd be stranded all summer.

"It's just. . . different now. Everyone has their own family's and lives." I whispered, finally looking to Phoenix beside me, my hand over my chest. "And I have no idea what I want to do with mine."

Phoenix had finally grown out of his boyish features a couple years ago. He still had the same infectious smile and piercing eyes, but the small rounded edges of his face had smoothed out and reshaped. He'd also decided that being clean shaven made him look seventeen rather than twenty-three and decided to allow the five o' clock shadow to reside on his face. Sam, on the other hand, refused to let even stubble stay on his face and still looked like a pretty faced teenage boy that'd walked straight out of a modeling catalog.