Ever since my parents died, I never really believed that there was a place for me to go home to. There was my cabin; but it never gave me the warm feeling that the word home should've portrayed. There was the weeping willow that I liked to sit under during my long walks into town, but it was more like an escape from the jail that I called my house. There wasn't a home, and I never thought that there would be; but when I heard Nite ask me in that tired voice of his if we could go home, I got that wholehearted feeling for the first time in god knows how long.
I want to go home.
So, as we walk along the dirt path that is now slushy with melting snow, it's hard for me to keep the smile off my face. My lungs feel as if they're breathing in fresh air from the highest mountain top, and my legs are limber and supple as if I had just ran a race.
Everything would be perfect if I didn't know that Nite will be leaving me soon.
But, if I keep my eyes on the clouds above us and pay attention to how nice the woods smell, then I can keep myself distracted from that fact. After all, I don't know exactly when he's going to leave, and I don't believe that I'm that attached to him yet, so I should be fine. I just can't think about it.
Warm breath, soft skin, glittering fog, cozy hugs, vibrant eyes, chilly igloos...
"You fainted last night," I blurt out.
Nite turns to look at me with a raised eyebrow, the skin on his forehead slightly shiny with sweat. His eyes are almost black again, considering that it's morning, and that does a good job distracting me from what happened last night. At least for a little bit.
"I did?" He asks. "I thought I was awake the entire time."
I remember how cold his skin became, how his lips turned from blue to purple and the snow crystalized on his eyelashes. He felt like a lump of snow in my arms, and the slowness of his heartbeat made me want to whip out the cell phone I didn't have and call 911. He was defiantly out cold; no doubt about it.
"What makes you think that?"
Nite suddenly stops in his tracks, looking up to the sky like he's trying to remember something. The wind rustles his hair.
"Weren't you there?" He asks, voice sounding a little forced. "Weren't you on the balcony with me?"
The wind whistles through the trees, snagging a nearby leave off of a branch and pushing it ever so gently towards the ground. It disappears behind Nite, just like I knew it would. But the sun is covered by the grey clouds, so of course he isn't translucent yet. Yet.
"Tell me about the balcony," I say calmly. "What were we doing there?"
"I don't know," he says, furrowing his eyebrows. "I just know that I took you there, and that we were talking but I couldn't hear what we were saying. There was an ocean below us, and you wanted to jump in, but I don't think I wanted you to. It was the same scenario as before, but I just couldn't hear this time."
If my brain could make a sound in this moment, it would be making that beeeeeep noise an old television does when a program gets cancelled and the screen becomes all fuzzy: Confusing, obnoxious, and just down-right frustrating.
Unfortunately though, I don't get much time to think about it because when we turn the last corner that comes to my house, there's a car parked in the driveway. An old red truck, with the bumper half way falling off and college stickers stuck to the back. I know whose car it is immediately, and the realization makes me extremely happy and tremendously afraid all at the same time.
The beeping in my brain grows louder as I grab Nite's wrist and consider throwing him into the nearest bush. Instead, I just stand in front of my house like a deer caught in headlights and breathe heavily through my nose. The lights in the living room are on, shinning out on us through the window, and I can see my sister's shadow moving throughout the house.
What is she doing here?
I spin Nite around to face me and shove a finger into his face. "Listen," I hiss quietly, "you gotta hide. You have to go somewhere and be very quiet while I go in there and talk to my sister. Do not come back out until she leaves or I come back out to get you, you hear?"
Nite peaks around my head. "Why? I want to go talk to her too. The only person I've seen since I woke up in that cold ditch was you, and I want to see if she resembles you any."
"No!" I hiss louder. "Nite, I don't know if you've noticed yet, but you're not a regular human being. If she sees you she'll completely flip her shit!"
"Well that's quite a mean thing for you to say," he frowns. "I promise, I'll just say a few things and then I'll leave."
"No!"
Before he can say anything else, another voice joins in.
"Tawny," my sister says, "is that you talking out here?"
Before Nite can even react I flip him around and shove him into the bushes. He topples over and falls so far into the leaves that it's to the point where I can't even see him anymore. He doesn't make a noise, which I am grateful for.
I look up to see that my sister, who is standing in the porch smiling at me, looks so different from when I last saw her. Her cheeks are rosy and no longer sunken in. Her mahogany hair is curled to perfection when I remember it being stringy and oily after so many missed showers. She put on some weight, but after being near 102 pounds a few years ago, the extra weight has filled her out and made her look healthy again. She's beautiful.
"Emma..." My bottom lip trembles as I say her name, and my face becomes hot with tears.
She smiles, her eyes growing watery as well, and it's not even three seconds before she strides over the driveway to scoop me up in her arms. She smells exactly how I remember; like cinnamon and mom's old home-baked cookies, and it surprises me when I notice that we are almost the same size now. She's only got about two inches on me, and it reminds me how long it's been since I last saw her. Too long.
"Tawny," she sobs into my hair. "God; I've missed you so much!"
"I've missed you too," I whisper, heart squeezing after hearing her words.
We stand there for a while, swaying back and forth in each other's arms, listening to my sister's sniffles as her tears drip on my shoulder. I can recall a similar situation many years back, on the first day I was going to stay at the cabin by myself and she told me that she was going to be gone for a year. Only back then, I was the one crying and she was the one who let me go.
It's the thought of that memory that makes me let go, pulling her strangling arms off me and patting her somewhat awkwardly on the shoulder. She's gotten tanner too.
Emma looks up at me after drying her eyes, taking in my grubby appearance and hair that probably hasn't been brushed in two months. I've been wearing the same shirt for about four days, so it probably doesn't look too great either. But she rests her hands on my cheeks anyway.
"You've grown up so much." She says honestly, her smile wobbling. "You're so beautiful, Tawny. I'm so proud of you."
I take her hands, smiling back. "Honestly, Emma; you're so pretty that I can't even compare myself to you. I am not beautiful."
Due to the lack of skincare products and makeup, I'm sure my face looks absolutely horrendous. Because of this, I got rid of the mirror I had in my little cabin look ago, so I'm not really a hundred percent sure of what I look like. But I'm almost positive that I'm not beautiful.
"Yes you are."
Emma's mouth doesn't open, and her smiling face quickly turns into a confused one when we both realize that the voice came from the bushes.
My face burns in a blush, the pink shooting all the way up to my ears when I see that Nite has now poked his head out of the leaves and is looking up at me with a very serious face. I consider kicking him, or screaming and pretending like I don't know him, but I'm too shocked to do anything but look at him.
What is my sister going to do?
She laughs. A loud, sweet laugh that echoes throughout the entire woods when she sees the horror on my face. It occurs to me that she's known that Nite was there the whole time, and was just trolling me to see my reaction. I frown at her, but she just keeps rolling.
Wiping more tears from her eyes, she takes my hand and grins.
"Now, if you're done pushing people into blushes, let's go inside. Bring your boyfriend in too; we need to talk."
..........Author's Note.........
Thank you so much for reading!
I hope you enjoyed that little plot twist; things are about to get really interesting in the next chapter. 😉🙃
I have also decided that I will update this story every Sunday, so be aware of that.
Also, if you actually read the authors note, you're my favorite person and you deserve a cookie. 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪
Don't be a silent reader! Thank you for reading! ❤️
-Iridescent