Cravings (girlxgirl)

Brother of Mine

                “He looked for me. He looked for me and I barely ever thought of him.”

                “You had other things on your mind.”

                “I’m sure he did too! But he still looked for me…”

                “Maybe you didn’t look for him because you felt guilty about having a family. Maybe you didn’t think he’d want to see you anyways and so you wouldn’t look for him because you were afraid of what would happen when you found him.”

                “Maybe.” I whispered.

                “It’ll be ok.”

                “He’s a stranger to me now… I haven’t seen him in eleven years.”

                “So get to know him again.”

                “Yeah.” I said quietly.

                I spent all of Monday freaking out. What do I wear to see my brother for the first time since I was a child? What does he look like? Does he still have those freckles? What do I say? Is he in love? Does he have a wife and a kid? Am I making a mistake?

                And I sat in a parking space looking at the café for about ten minutes before I finally walked in. I wasn’t sure if he was already there. How would I know if he was? It’d been eleven years; he didn’t look like the boy I knew.

                I sent him a text telling him I was there and I sat down at one of the two person tables in the café and fiddled with my hands. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I turned to see a young man standing there. A nervous crooked smile, short light brown hair, and blue eyes. Even without those freckles, I knew who this man was.

                “Caleb.” I whispered and stood up.

                “You haven’t changed a bit Nic.”

                I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me tightly. He was the only one who called me that. My mom used to, but...then the car crashed… My middle name was Nicole, and my mom and dad used to call me Nic, and Caleb started calling me it too.

                “You lost your freckles.” I said when I finally let go.

                “You got taller.”

                “So did you.” I grinned.

                He sat down in the other chair and I sat with him. “I’m guessing you dyed your hair. Looks nice.”

                “Thanks. How have you been? I mean, for the past eleven years what’s been going on?”

                “After we got separated I got tossed around for a few years. Couple bad families, but most of them weren’t horrible. When I was 13, a nice family took me in. We moved to New York when I was 14 and I went to high school there. I turned 18 and stayed there for a while, and then I decided Seattle seemed like a nice place and came here.”

                “Any girlfriends?” I asked.

                “Not since high school. What about boys?”

                My heart was racing; I wanted my brother to accept me more than my adopted family. All I wanted was for him not to hate me. “I’m actually a lesbian.”