THIEVES ━ SHURI UDAKU

▬ eighteen: never be alone

SOME THINGS CHANGED over time but others didn't. Some books will always be as good as the first time you read it. Some people will always be bad and some will always be good. Some people will always make you feel the same way. Even after years of growth, change and reasonable height different between the two, his older sister always had a way of making Caleb feel smaller and so protected. Even if she didn't mean to.

When Kemi turned around, her eyes were rimmed with red and her face was wet with tears. She opened her mouth to speak but her words came out in hiccups. She opened her mouth to speak again and this time, tears rolled down her face. Caleb had to cross his arms over his chest to keep from embracing her.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, her voice somehow higher than he'd ever remembered. "I didn't know what to do but I saw you at the hospital and I was so worried. I-I had no idea that this would happen. I'm so sorry."

Caleb wondered how it was that no matter how old he was, there were some things that he could never get rid of. He could never really stop himself from crossing his fingers underneath the table every time that he thought about dying. He could never stop the anger from boiling over in his chest whenever he thought about his father and he could never stop himself from wanting to hug his sister every time that he saw her cry. To wrap his arms around her and hold her despite the fact that she was stronger than he would ever be and despite the fact that she might never need him the way that he needed her. And he needed her. He didn't think about it often but now that she was in front of him, he realized all of the ways that she was embedded in the inscription of his heart.

Caleb clenched his jaw and forced his sympathy down his throat, allowing his eyes to glaze over with indifference. He reminded himself this was no longer the girl that always made something separate for him because he refused to eat fish like the rest of his family. He reminded himself that when he'd needed her the most, she'd abandoned him. Like he meant nothing.

"No. I mean what are you doing here? Why are you here now?"

Her hiccups stopped suddenly and she looked at Caleb with a sad look in her eyes. "She was my mother too."

Caleb felt the sympathy fade away and he put his hands into his pockets to keep from doing something that he would regret. He scoffed and laughed, a deep empty sound that reverberated in his body and caused him to double over. "That is rich," he started. "Because as far as I know, most people don't leave their sick mothers in the middle of the night because they are too selfish to stay."

Kemi's eyes watered. "I'm so sorry. I regretted leaving the moment I did. But everything was getting to me and I thought that if I could do something with my life then I could come back for you guys."

"And what happened when you did?" Caleb asked, kicking at the ground.

Kemi seemed taken aback by the question. She looked Caleb dead in the eyes and what stared back at her was unfamiliar. It was nothing like the brother she'd once known. The boy who was afraid of the dark and snuck into her bed when it rained because he was afraid of being alone. That boy was gone. "I was ashamed. I couldn't come back knowing that I'd done something so cowardly and I figured that you probably didn't want to see me anyways."