Ana's POV:
"Boys, I'm home," I call, opening the front door and throwing my suitcase on the ground. I look around the house, my parents house, my old house, now my brothers house. It's changed so much since the last time I was here. And so have I...
"Annalise?!" A voice calls, running out of the kitchen.
"Darry!" I yell, running into my brothers arms.
"I've missed you, kid," He says with a laugh, stroking my hair.
"Yeah, you too, little brother," I say, beaming. I never miss an opportunity to remind him that I'm one full year older, especially when he calls me kid.
"How was the trip up here?" He asks, letting go of me. I shrug.
"It was fine. Better, now that I have a car, and can drive myself." I almost smile, but then I remember where I got the car. It was my parents second car, the one that they weren't using when they got into the accident. Since I'm the oldest, I was the one that got it. The two of us are silent for a minute, but then Soda comes out of his room.
"Ana!" He exclaims, rushing over to me.
"Hey, Soda," I say, squeezing my baby brother.
"I missed you," He mumbles quietly. I barely hear it, but it still breaks my heart a little bit more.
"I missed you too, Sodapop," I say, not letting go of him.
"Hey, do you want me to take your stuff into your room?" He asks me. I nod, letting go of him so he could pick up my heavy suitcase.
Together, we walk through the small hallway over to my old room. Opening the door, it looks exactly as it did the last time I was here. And the time before that, and honestly, the same way it's looked since I was 6, without even a thing out of place.
"It looks like nobody's been in here for years," I say, walking over to my bed, which looked freshly made.
"That's because we haven't," Soda says, dropping my suitcase in front of me.
"Really?" I ask him. He shakes his head.
"Nobody's been in here since the last time you were," He says. The last time I was here... When was that?
Oh, yeah. The funeral.... It was the first time I'd been out here in ages, almost a year, which was something I regretted greatly, and still do.
I have a great family, don't get me wrong. My parents both loved me dearly, and I loved them too. Heck, they paid to put me through college.
Darry and I grew up together, I can't remember a time without him, even though I'm a year older. My parents used to call us "The Twins", as we were inseparable as children.
I graduated from high school a year before him, and ended up going to college first. Darry decided to take a year off for money, and got a full time job. Then the one year became two, and then our parents died. Now, he works two jobs, and has custody of two teenage boys.
Soda and I have always gotten along well. I was 5 when he was born, and Darry was four. Obviously, Soda's always been partial to his older brother, but he and I have always been pretty close too. I was just like one of the boys when I was younger, always playing soccer and baseball and football with the guys. Maybe that's why Pony and I never got along. He likes to stay inside and read or watch a
movie, something I was never really interested in.
Ponyboy, my youngest brother is about seven years younger than me. That's a big age difference, and I had already been pretty close with my other brothers by the time he was born. I love the little guy, but he doesn't seem to care too much for me. Maybe I didn't show enough love to him when he was young, or maybe he was jealous of the relationship I had with the two of them, but he's always been much closer to Soda than me. Or Darry, for that matter.
Anyways, I hadn't come home at all, that school year. It was my junior year of college and everything was going perfect. I had straight A's, and I wanted to keep them. So I stayed in my dorm, studying and writing, not having time to go visit my family. I planned to go home that summer, which was only a few months away, and spend my entire vacation before Senior year there, but then I got that dreaded phone call...
"Hello? Ana and Leesha's room. Ana speaking," I said into the phone.
"Annalise... It's me," Darry said. Usually hearing my brothers voice brightened my day, but he sounded sad this time.
"Hey. Everything okay?" I asked him. There was a momentary pause on the other line, making me a bit nervous.
"Are you sitting down?" He asked me. I was not, but luckily, my spiral chord reached over to my desk chair, so I sat there.
"Y-yeah... Why?" I asked him.
"Ana, I don't know how to say this, but you need to be home... by tomorrow," He said. My eyes widened. Tomorrow?! What about all of my tests? What about the homework? What about Ella?
"I can't...." I said. I wished that I could, I missed my brothers, my parents, the gang, but school started to get in the way, and I couldn't go home and visit like I did every weekend during Freshman year.
"Well, you have to, Ana. Mom and dad got in a car accident," He said. Right then, my heart dropped down into my stomach.
"What?" I yelled.
"Are they okay?" I demanded into the phone. And I could tell by the way that Darry didn't respond, that his breathing became heavy, and a few sobs escaped from his lips that they were most certainly not okay. I had only seen my brother cry a few times in my entire life. Darrel Shaynne Curtis Jr. is the strongest person I've ever met, inside and out, and I can still remember the pain I heard him in during that phone call.
"Oh my god," I whispered into the phone, realizing what was going on.
"Yeah. They're gone, sis..." Is all he had to respond with.
"Oh my god... I... I'll be home tonight," I whispered before hanging up the phone. And then I sat at my desk, staring at the notebook and pencil that I had sitting there. I was writing a note to Ella, my girlfriend, for our 6 month anniversary.
I remember tears steaming down my face and I just watched them as they soaked my paper. And then I ripped it up, because I only wanted the best for Ella, and the best wasn't a tearstained, handwritten in pencil note.
That was when Leesha, my roommate walked in.
"Hey," She said to me, smiling. Her beautiful light brown eyes lit up as she walked into the room. Her poofy hair was over her face, but she tucked it behind her ears and ran over to me as soon as she saw me.
"What happened?" She asked, kneeling on the ground next to my chair and putting her arms around me. I was hysterical for a few minutes, bawling my eyes out, but after a few minutes I felt calm enough to tell her what Darry told me. That my parents got in a car accident and passed away, and I needed to get home, tonight. Except at that point, I didn't have a car.
She offered to drive me the four hour drive back home, and ended up going to the funeral with me.
She stayed by my side through the whole funeral, trying to keep me calm, but it was hard. Between the gang in hysterics, the tears in all of our family friends and parents co-workers eyes, not even Leesha could hold her tears back. Darry was the only one who didn't cry at all, but I knew he was the most upset. No one said anything about it to him, though.
Leesha and I both stayed in my room, sharing the bed. When Ella found out about that, she broke up with me immediately, and that was six months down the drain...
But here I am now, back in my childhood bedroom during Christmas Vacation of my Senior Year of College, and I couldn't be happier.
"Hey, where's Ponyboy?" I ask Soda. He shrugs.
"His room, maybe?" He suggests. I nod and walk out of my room, Soda following close behind me.
"Ponyboy?" I say, knocking on his door. He opens it slowly.
"Oh. Hey, sis," He says. I take my youngest brother in my arms, hugging him tightly.
"I missed you," I tell him. He just shrugs, trying to escape himself from my grasp.
"Then why don't you ever come home?" He asks me. I'm momentarily stunned, unsure of how to respond.
"Because, Ponyboy. I have school. And things here... are just hard," I say. It's not a total lie, ever since mom and dad passed, it has been different and hard for me. School is also a struggle, but one of the real reasons I haven't been home as much as I should be is because of myself. I live a closeted lie here...
A/N: So that's chapter one! Yes, Ana is lesbian. If you don't support that, then you probably shouldn't keep reading, but if you do, then great! Keep going.