(Just to tell you before the chapter starts. This is the last chapter, just from Birdy's POV)
Birdy Anders
Birdy listened with her hands clenched as her sister explained their brother’s situation. After four years of thinking he was dead, they had been given the information that he was astonishingly alive. They yelled at Holiday for making such a horrible joke before she showed them a photo and a video that had been recently taken of him. There on that phone screen was undeniably her brother. All grown up with a melancholy look in his beautiful brown eyes. She had still been met with more backlash, but they eventually calmed down enough to listen. They were relieved and happy and excited and in tears, and she loved it. The thing that Birdy really didn’t like, though, was the rules, Holiday had a lot of rules for how this was going to happen. For how they were going to meet him again. For how she was going to interact with her own brother.
Don’t touch him.
Don’t expect him to talk a lot.
He might not remember things.
Don’t raise your voice at him.
Don’t make unexpected movements. Be slow and calm.
And the list went on and on of what they were allowed to do and what they weren’t allowed to do. Then another list came, a list that upsetted her parents even more than her surprisingly.
He won’t be staying at the house.
He won’t be around them for more than an hour a day.
He won’t be there every day.
He’ll spend more time with Holiday than the rest of them.
He has some friends that he considers family more than them.
The last one really infuriated her, more than the others at least. He had a group of random people he considered more family than them. Apparently, they were allowed to touch him, and they could be loud around him, and they knew what he liked and what he was doing. She was glad that at least Holiday was in this group but it only made her more mad when she realized that in order for her to be a part of that group she would’ve had to be around Cyrus and that meant she had known.
She had known about Cyrus being alive for long enough to get close enough to him that he would let her do things he barely let anyone else do. She had known and hadn’t told them. She tried to calm down as she didn’t want to yell at her sister, but it was hard. It was very, very hard.
She asked if they could at least know why all of this was the way it was. Shouldn’t Cyrus be overjoyed to be back with his real family after so long? Shouldn’t he be ready to hug them and tell them how he loves them?
Holiday had just sighed and said that that was his story to tell and that if he wanted to, he would, but she wasn’t willing to push him to tell any of them the details of what happened. She had said that he had been through things that none of them wanted to imagine, then she had looked at her parents. A look of realization came over their faces, and it was obvious that it affected them. Birdy wasn’t sure what that meant, but she knew it was bad, so she started crying. Imagining what had happened to him.
She was angry that she couldn’t even know the reason behind why she couldn’t do anything normal with him. She tried to keep it in as more tears slipped past her cheeks, and she tried to also keep those in. It was hard, and she didn’t like it, but she really had to be stronger right then.
She stood up with her father when her sister turned to open the door that her dead brother was supposedly behind. When that door did open, it took all the willpower in her being to not run towards him and embrace him. When she looked at her father, he seemed to be in shock as his mouth hung open, and he looked like he had seen a real-life ghost. This was probably because he had.
She didn’t even know what to think as she saw him in real life. His curly hair had been cut a bit shorter, and he had a couple scars on his neck, and he was definitely older, taller. But that was her brother. The boy who helped her with small injuries when they were younger and who sang to her old love songs that she had always called stupid before. She remembered when he used to buy her warm tortillas.
He was looking around the room with an unreadable look on his face. He was looking at all the different pictures, and she felt happy when he smiled a bit at a picture of her on stage. But that happiness dropped when his eyes lingered on the memorial shelf they had put up for him on the wall.
She saw her mother begin to walk towards him and open up her arms to embrace him, but he stepped back. He flinched away when her mom wanted to hug him like she was going to hit him or burn him. A flashing look of pure fear was shown in his eyes when she got close to him. He tried to give her something that she thought was meant to be a smile, but it looked more like a pained grimace.
She barely registered the fact that her sister pointed him towards the couch, telling him to sit there, until her father pulled her along to sit down with the rest of them. She didn’t like the idea of sitting down and doing nothing while her brother sat there with obvious fear and indecision in his eyes.
All she wanted to do was comfort him and find out why he was feeling those emotions around her, around his own mother and father. Sure, he leaned into holiday a bit for guidance, but that was still not enough.
She saw her mother get up and announce that she was going to grab some water for everyone.
Birdy was aware of what connotations came along with this, and when she looked at the others' faces, it was clear they knew too. At that point in time, he was no longer family. No longer their brother or their son, now he was just another visitor. He was a random person they barely knew.
“Well, this isn’t awkward whatsoever.” She heard his sister suddenly say.
“Not at all.” Her mother replied with a small smile on her face.
Conversation began a bit after that. It was still tense, and she knew her brother wasn’t comfortable, but it was still nice to actually hear his voice. His voice was amazing. She felt wonderful when his voice washed over her, a sound that she hadn’t heard in years. He was quieter now and seemed more hesitant to speak, but when he did, she loved it. There was one time when she was telling a funny story when he silently laughed, and she felt like it was an unheard melody.
She continued to tell the stories in hopes that they would somehow continue to chase those small chuckles out of him until he would finally actually laugh a real full laugh, one she remembered.
“And then Holiday ran straight into the door!” Birdy told a funny story.
“We agreed not to bring that up again!” Holiday exclaimed embarrassed.
“I didn’t agree to anything!” She hollered out and felt a nice bit of satisfaction when Cyrus giggled.
She knew she was doing most of the talking, but she had always been told that she had infectious energy, so maybe that was for the best right then. She laughed loudly along with everyone else and gave more funny stories that spurred on the energy in the room and connected them all.
“Music! Let’s play some music!” Birdy suddenly exclaimed while she pulled out her phone to play and forced everyone into a very impromptu dance session to some Spanish songs she liked.
El sol acarició,
Mi corazón,
Con flores,
Te llevaste mi tristeza, con colores,
Dibujaste la nobleza de la mano,
A tu lado creció nuestra ilusión.
Sure, this was a happy moment, and she was happy. She was glad to be able to be with her brother again, where most people wouldn’t have gotten that type of opportunity. But she was also mad.
She wanted to know. Wanted to know why her brother wasn’t the same, what had happened, why the actual fuck he had seemed afraid of their own mother. She really wanted to know all of that.
Eventually, a long while later, Cyrus would tell her what happened to him and about Tempest. Even with all the tiny specific details, she would hold him while he did so. She would hold him while she simultaneously plotted how to commit a murder. But she couldn’t do that because Tempest had fled the country the night of the attack and couldn’t be found no matter how much anyone tried.
So, for right then, she could be happy. Happy with her brother and her family and Spanish love songs.
A ciegas
Nos entregamos, aunque muchos se opusieron
Disimulamos nuestro amor, nos inventamos
En cada rincón
Nuestra canción...
(I won't put the translation for the first Spanish bit since I put that in the last chapter but I will put it in for the second Spanish bit.
Blindly,
We handed ourselves, although many oppose it,
We hide out love, we reinvent each other,
In every spot,
Our song...
There will still be one more chapter but it won't be for the story it will just be information and stuff, but if you still want to read that next please do!
This is the last story chapter. Hope you enjoyed! Bye!)