I am completely lost.
After leaving Jack and Will's room – correction, after being thrown out by Will because I hurt our brother with asking all these questions – I have been standing in the hallway for an eternity, feeling paralyzed and unable to make any useful decisions.
The conversation with my brothers and hearing their heart-breaking story has emotionally drained me. Yes, I think that is how Sean would describe the way I am feeling.
I have always been fascinated by his job and his "insightfulness", if that is even a word. I love to listen to him when he starts explaining the reasons for why people do this or behave like that. I guess I have picked up the odd expression and have even been able to retain some of the stuff he has mentioned over the years.
Thinking about Sean...
Should I call him to make sure he is okay?
He sounded okay to me at the family meeting. But it is a bit hard to tell, through the phone. Plus, you can hide things so much better if you don't have to look at anybody.
Maybe I should check up on him?
Technically, I am not allowed to use my phone after 8pm. But nobody asked me to bring it downstairs yet. And as far as I can tell, Sam is the only one home with us kids. He isn't really known to enforce Alex' rules. He sticks to them, of course, when he is reminded of them, but he won't normally bother us if we "forget" to do something. He is kind of laid back in that respect.
I dismiss the thought of calling Sean.
What would I even say to him?
What kind of comfort could I offer?
He might be mad at me, for digging in my family's past and bringing all these old, sad memories back to the surface. I don't think I could handle his being upset with me, on top of everything else.
Instead, I find myself wandering towards the twins' bedroom as if on auto-pilot. This time I don't hesitate, like I did when I was standing in front of Jack's room earlier. I knock and wait.
"Come in," Noah calls a few seconds later.
I open the door and cautiously walk in, prepared for Aidan's standard complaint about my being there and completely ignoring his order to stay out of their room. Only, this time, he doesn't say anything. Well, actually, he does, but it certainly isn't what I expected.
"Are you okay?" Aidan asks.
I stare at him wide-eyed, trying to figure out if I am hearing things.
Since when does he care about my well-being?
"U-uhm...y-yeah... I t-think I am...umm...I-I guess...well, no...no, I am not," I stammer.
I catch myself nervously fiddling with my hands.
"Are you crying?" Noah now speaks up, too.
My hands fly up to my face, confused by his question, and I am surprised to find that my cheeks are wet.
I guess I am crying.
I haven't even noticed this. How weird. As if I am only just now becoming more aware of myself, the headache makes itself known again, too. I wince and involuntarily squeeze my eyes shut for a second.
When I open them again, Noah is standing right in front of me, completely invading my personal space. He looks at me suspiciously.
"What's going on with you, huh?" he asks softly.
"My head hurts," I press out.
"Did something happen?"
I raise my eyebrow at him, signalling that this is a pretty stupid question, considering what we just found out. Well, he doesn't know the full extent of it yet, I give him that. But the stuff our brothers told us at the family meeting surely should be reason enough for my head wanting to explode.
When he continues to look at me with his intense gaze, I realise that he is serious about his question.
"I fell off Jack's bed and hit the back of my head on the night stand," I admit sheepishly.
Again, I expect Aidan to either burst out laughing at my misfortune or to at least make a snarky remark about my clumsiness. But he remains oddly silent. Instead, he gets up from his bed and comes over to where we are standing.
"Did you get it looked at by someone?" he wants to know.
If at all possible, my eyes grow even wider at his uncharacteristic behaviour.
What is going on here?
I shake my head no, unable to utter a word. I am too confused by this.
"That was pretty stupid," he chastises me and my heart immediately grows a bit lighter at the annoyed tone in his voice.
That's more like it.
"Let me see. You could have a concussion or something."
Okay, maybe I should not stop worrying about him just yet. This is starting to freak me out.
I am so wrapped up in my thoughts and trying to find a reason for Aidan's uncharacteristic demeanour that I startle when his fingers cautiously touch the back of my head, parting my hair at the exact place where the sore spot is located. I flinch when Aidan's fingers graze it.
"Doesn't seem too bad," he diagnoses.
Normally, his acting so self-confident would make me laugh out loud. But I am too bemused to react. Noah changes position so that he can have a look at my injury, too, and he grunts his agreement.
"Okay, great...now that we have established that I don't have a life threatening head injury...can we....I don't know...talk?" I put my request forward. "Or something?"
"Is that why you came here?" Noah asks gently.
He grabs my hand and pulls me with him towards his bed and pushes me to sit down on it. He then walks around to the other side of the bed and throws himself onto it, lying on his back. Aidan just stands there for a moment and then wordlessly leaves the room.
Does he not want to talk about what happened?
I am still musing over that when he returns and hands me a pill and a glass of water.
"For your headache," he explains.
If I haven't been worried before, now is definitely the time to start. It is unheard of that Aidan does anything at all to help me, let alone that he takes care of me.
Has the family meeting done this to him?
Is this my fault, too?
I mutter a thank you and then turn towards Noah, hoping that he can read the unspoken question in my expression about what is wrong with his twin. Apparently, it works but he just shrugs his shoulders and offers me small smile as if to say: enjoy it while it lasts.
Something soft hitting my head makes me jump and turn back towards Aidan who is now sitting perched on the edge of his bed. He is smirking at me, and although it looks a bit forced, it causes relief to wash over me.
"Clean your face, you look ridiculous," he orders, nodding towards something beside me.
I look down and find a packet of tissues lying next to me. So that is what he threw at me. I childishly stick my tongue out at him but do as I am told.
"Nice," Aidan comments sarcastically.
My heart grows a bit lighter. I am glad to find that he has not completely changed. Although I sometimes wish that he and I got along a bit better, it would sure be weird if he suddenly became all nice.
I think we are playing it up most of the time, anyway, us acting as if we couldn't stand each other. It has sort of become our kind of "normal" that we get into fights all the time over petty things and behave like being around the other is the greatest punishment imaginable. But deep down, I really don't mind Aidan that much.
Sure, he has a way to get under my skin like none of my other brothers do. But that doesn't mean I don't love him. And vice versa. I strongly believe that this goes for him, too. Not that we would ever admit this out loud, of course. We wouldn't ever consider saying it to each other when nobody else were present. I'd rather bite my tongue off than to ever admit this to his face.
Plus, with most of my brothers it is really difficult to actually get into a fight, so having Aidan around is a bit like a well-needed outlet. The others always either act all grown up, boring and responsible, like Alex and Ben, or they are just generally people where it takes a lot to get a negative reaction from them, like Jack or Luke, for example.
So yeah, my favourite person in this family to pick a fight with – also because it is so easy to annoy him – is definitely Aidan. Will probably comes second, but since I am still a tiny bit afraid of him, even if he has been kind of nice to me lately, I try to steer clear of unnecessary confrontations with him.
"So...what did you want to talk about?" Noah asks, the words rolling off his tongue slowly as if he is not quite sure about showing his willingness to talk.
I know from experience that the boys are not the biggest fans of heart-to-hearts. Alex usually has to force them to open up about stuff that bothers them and it is pretty awkward if I am around to witness these situations. I think he mainly does it because that is what parental figures are supposed to do, although he doesn't like emotional discussions either. Even if he has to have them with me, it always feels a bit weird and kinda forced.
I prefer opening up to Sean, since he always makes me feel totally at ease when I speak to him. But since he is not around most of the time, I also sometimes go to Josh – and now that he is back, to Jordan. Jordan always humours me and does a great job making me feel like he actually really wants to know what I have to say or what I need to get off my chest.
I am not saying that Alex makes me feel like he doesn't care, of course not, but I know that he prefers the more hands on situations in raising kids and not the emotionally charged conversations. Lucky for him, my teenage brothers don't seem to feel the urge to have heart-to-hearts very often.
I turn to look at Noah and give him an incredulous look.
"I don't know...maybe about what happened earlier?" I reply sharply.
"What's there even to talk about?" Aidan grunts from his side of the room.
"Yeah...," Noah agrees with him, sounding a bit reluctant though.
"Are you kidding me? Does it not...I don't know...upset you, what we found out?" I question them.
"What do you mean? The information that some of us have different mothers and nobody ever bothered telling us about that little fact? Or that they kept it from us that they had another sibling who died before we were even born? Or that Alex refuses to tell us anything about our father and basically treats us like stupid little kids? Or that our mother simply left us behind right after she had you?" Aidan spits out, his eyes blazing.
I clearly must have hit a nerve with my question.
"Umm...yeah?" I say uselessly.
"You know what, Lily? That I had to find out that my own twin went behind my back with you and that you guys have known for I don't know how long that something doesn't quite add up but never even for a second considered telling me about it, that is what really upsets me!"
Aidan has jumped up during his rant and has moved towards the window. His back is turned to us as he is staring out into the dark.
A feeling of guilt is slowly taking over my whole body. Now that he has laid it out like this in front of us, I think it was quite shitty of us not to let him in on what we found. On the one hand, I am super grateful for Noah that he is so trustworthy and actually kept it a secret, but on the other hand, it was very selfish of me to ask Noah not to tell his twin.
All I am doing lately is hurt the people I love the most.
Images of Jack and Will flash through my mind, followed by the devastated expressions on Josh and Jordan's faces when I confronted them with my knowledge. I quickly shake my head to get rid of these hurtful and confusing memories.
"I am sorry. That was my fault. Please don't blame Noah," I plead.
Noah immediately kicks me with his foot and when I look at him, he shakes his head no. Apparently, he doesn't share my opinion.
"It's both our fault. We agreed together that we wouldn't tell anybody until we had spoken to one of the older guys," Noah explains. "I am sorry, too. We should have told you."
"What exactly happened anyway? How did you find out about that stuff?" Aidan wants to know.
He turns back towards us and then comes to sit on the edge of Noah's bed, looking expectantly at us. Noah and I exchange a quick look and I start to tell him about Jordan's remark from seven or eight weeks ago, when we were watching the end of Aidan's try-outs.
I put my hand up to stop him when Aidan wants to interrupt me. I can tell from the expression on his face that he is already getting impatient because he probably thinks I am being too elaborate and that I am recounting unnecessary details. But to me it is important that he hears the whole story.
Also, I kind of feel the need to justify mine and Noah's actions. The last thing I want is to come across as paranoid. However, seeing as how things turned out and what we learned today, nobody could really accuse us of seeing ghosts.
Once I have covered everything up until when I went up to the attic, Noah takes over and explains what we discovered in the boxes and how we put two and two together about there being no way that Sean's mom could be ours, too. Which eventually lead us to the family meeting.
"And that's all we know," he finishes his story.
"Wow," is all Aidan says.
He dramatically flops backwards on Noah's twin bed and only barely misses throwing himself across my feet. I manage to pull my legs up and away just in time. The bed shakes dangerously and I already see myself tumbling off a bed yet again, but Noah is quick and reaches out to hold me back.
I give him a grateful smile in return and shift upwards until I am leaning against the headboard. I tuck my legs tightly against my body and wrap my arms around my knees.
"Wow," Aidan repeats when none of us says anything.
"Yeah, that's what we thought, too," Noah eventually replies.
"So what's the story about their move here?" Aidan muses out loud.
"Your guess is as good as ours," I say. "So you don't know anything about that either?"
Aidan turns his head to look at me.
"Don't you think I would have told you ages ago if I did?" he bites out.
Ouch.
I guess we deserve that after not sharing our discoveries with him straight away.
"Do you think it matters that we moved here when we were still really little and it never came up again ever since?" Noah asks his twin. "Does it mean something that we never talk about it?"
"After what I found out today, everything seems to mean something," Aidan replies philosophically.
"And they are apparently not beyond keeping secrets from us...," Noah adds with a thoughtful nod.
"I forgot to ask Jack and Will about it," I say quietly.
Immediately, the twins' heads swivel towards me in synchronized movements.
"When did you speak to them? Just now?" Noah questions me.
I look at him funny.
"I just told you a few minutes ago that I fell off Jack's bed," I remind him, rolling my eyes.
"She did," Aidan backs me up, surprising me once again.
Today is such a strange day. Everybody is acting way out of character.
"But what did you talk to them about?" Noah insists, ignoring our remarks.
I sigh and bury my face in my knees.
Am I ready to tell them what I found out about Jack and Will's past?
Are they ready to learn about it?
"Come on, spit it out. No more secrets, remember?" Aidan pushes me.
I don't remember us having come to that kind of agreement, but I decide to let it go. Telling Aidan about everything that has happened over the past few weeks actually felt really liberating. So did talking to the rest of my brothers, even if it brought forward a lot of heart-breaking and I guess in some way also game changing revelations. There is no reason to keep new stuff from my brothers.
Who knows, maybe they will become the partners in crime that I need if I want to find out more?
"Okay," I start slowly. "But it is quite shocking, so don't say afterwards that I didn't warn you..."
I summarize what Will told me about their mother and how they ended up living with our brothers. Actually, thinking about it, I don't have much information on how they ended up staying with Alex and the rest of the guys indefinitely. Surely, one cannot just put kids in a taxi and send them off to live with someone else. There must be, I don't know, legal procedures. There must be a reason that Alex calls himself our "legal guardian", after all.
Or can you just give your kids away?
Is that what our mother did with us, too?
There is still so much stuff that I don't have a clue about.
Aidan lets out a string of expletives that would never even make me raise an eyebrow if they came from Will. But hearing them come out of a fourteen-year-old's mouth is quite shocking. I guess the two of them are not just similar when it comes to their pleasure in fighting with their siblings. Maybe they have inherited their temper from our father, seeing as our mothers are different people. Although, Will's mother certainly sounded plenty volatile and angry.
"You're lucky that Alex didn't hear that," I cannot stop myself from saying.
"Jeez, listen to goody-two-shoes over there," Aidan smirks, shaking his head at my statement.
"Do you guys have to fight?" Noah asks, sounding tired.
When I look closer at him, I find that his eyes are kind of glassy.
Is he crying?
"Are you okay?" I whisper.
He nods and kind of awkwardly rubs his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie.
Suddenly, Aidan jumps to his feet and positions himself next to Noah's bed. He fixes us with an intense stare. One, that rivals Will's. I wonder why I never noticed before just how similar these two are. Maybe now, knowing that the lot of us are not full siblings, I subconsciously pay these kind of things a lot more attention than I used to. Like I am searching for similarities just to receive proof that we actually do belong together.
It all feels messed up, somehow.
"Guys, we need a plan," Aidan announces, still staring firmly at us.
Now he's talking!
That is exactly what I have been saying all this time. And Noah was always so reluctant to do any more digging. Maybe I should have come to Aidan from the start.
"A plan for what?" Noah asks cautiously, propping himself up on his elbows.
"To find out the story behind their move here. And to find out more about our...mother."
The way he says mother clearly indicates that he is not very impressed with the person who abandoned us when we were only little.
"And how do you want to do that?" Noah throws the next question at him.
"That, my dear brother, is what we need a plan for. You guys in?"
Aidan looks expectantly from Noah to me. I don't have to think about it long.
"I'm in," I say.
"Noah?"
My youngest brother looks a bit uncertain. I unwrap my arms from my knees and put a hand on his shoulder, patting it comfortingly.
"Come on, Noah. You're already in this up to your neck, anyway. Plus, we need you to keep the two of us from killing each other. This is gonna be like these pretend adventure trips we went on when we were little. Just for real, this time," I try to convince him.
"I don't know. Alex said...," he starts.
"Since when do we care what he says?" Aidan, the rebel, is clearly back.
I shoot him a glare at being so disrespectful towards our oldest brother. The brother who obviously had to take over these guardianship duties under pretty bad circumstances. Alex is actually the only reason why I would reconsider this all and stop acting upon my urge to keep digging into our past. The last thing on my mind is to hurt him even more with any of our actions.
Well, I reckon that is a moot wish, since I most certainly already achieved that, even if unintentionally.
"Of course we mind Alex, Noah," I placate the younger twin, contradicting Aidan. "And I promise we will not look into our father. Just like Alex said, it is up to him to decide when he will tell us more, or anything at all. But I think it is our right to find out why we moved here around the time I was born. After what we learned today, it does feel kind of odd and we should be allowed to know the reasons behind it. Also, even if Alex does not want us to know anything about our father, I think we should at least get some information about our mother. They already told us some things about her. I just want to fill in some blanks. And to do that, we need you on board. Please?"
"What she said," Aidan adds, surprising me for the hundredth time this evening.
I give him an appreciative nod and he throws me a look that I believe to interpret as "don't get used to it". I certainly won't.
"Alright. But as soon as this turns weird – well, weirder than it already is – we are going to talk to someone. And with someone I don't mean the likes of Jack or Will. I mean Alex, or one of the older twins. You got that? Do we have a deal?" Noah eventually gives in.
"Deal!" Aidan and I shout in unison.
The three of us shake on it and for the first time in forever, the feeling of determination replaces the nausea and dread that have taken hold of my body for the past few days and weeks.
I convince myself that there is finally some kind of a light at the end of the tunnel that I walked into when I first opened one of these yearbooks all these weeks ago.
"What now?" Noah asks into the silence that has engulfed us after we came to our agreement.
I am still sitting on his bed with my legs crossed. Aidan has returned to his corner of the room and Noah is lying with his arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling.
"We probably should go to sleep," I reply, suddenly feeling exhausted.
A yawn escapes me, which I quickly try to cover, but it is too late.
"Aww, is the baby tired?" Aidan doesn't disappoint.
But just like with most of the things he said before, the familiar edge to his statement is missing. It almost sounds – endearing?
Naw, that can't be right.
A thought crosses my mind but I am reluctant to say it out loud.
"What is it?" Noah asks beside me, startling me.
Since when can he read my mind?
"You started to say something," he explains, having seen my startled expression.
Oh, so I did say something out loud already?
For some reason, this calms me down. The last thing I would want is for my younger brothers to suddenly develop a deeper understanding for my thought processes and to be able to read me like a book. It is bad enough that some of my adult brothers seem to possess this annoying ability.
"Can...can I m-maybe sleep in here tonight?" I rush out after the initial hesitation.
A snort comes from Aidan's side of the room.
"What?" I call angrily out at him.
"You're certainly not sleeping in my bed," he claims.
I stare at him. Not for what he said but for what he didn't say.
Does that mean he is okay with me staying here tonight?
That is definitely a first. I remember how he always got upset whenever we went somewhere as a family and stayed overnight and Alex decided that all the younger kids had to share a room. Aidan would complain like clockwork that he would certainly not stay in the same room with me. That in return would upset me, of course. Because usually, to prevent endless fights, Josh or Alex would relent and make me stay with them instead, which I found really unfair, since I thought that staying with an adult was not even half the fun as staying up all night in the company of my younger brothers.
Anyway, to say that I am bemused by his cool reaction to my request, is putting it mildly. I seriously start to wonder if I, I don't know, broke him by exposing him to all these family secrets. Although his mere presence sometimes irritates me, I kind of hope that the old Aidan will resurface soon enough. It would be weird if we suddenly got along. And kind of boring, too.
"Does that mean you want to sleep in...my bed?" Noah asks slowly.
He looks a bit worried and I cannot hide a smile.
"Eww, of course not! I don't want to share with any of you...you...boys!" I exclaim stupidly, since I cannot think of a more accurate term just now.
"Wow, Noah, would you look at that? We got a bright one in our midst. She figured out that we are boys!" Aidan cackles.
I actually give him a grateful look for this remark, which seems to confuse him, but I ignore his puzzled expression.
"What I mean is, maybe I can sleep on the floor?" I suggest.
"Be my guest. But I don't want to hear any complaints about smells and weird stains and stuff on the carpet. I cannot remember when we last vacuumed it."
Ah, at least Aidan hasn't yet lost his ability to be brutally honest.
"Come on, dude, shut up! And that's not true, Lily. Don't listen to him. Alex made me clean our room only last weekend. Plus, we're not that disgusting," Noah defends himself and his twin.
For some reason, I have an easier time believing what Aidan said, but I decide not to comment on it. After all, my aim is that I am allowed to stay with them tonight. The thought of having to be in my own room all night, completely alone with my mind, scares me. Staying with the twins will at least partially distract me from the tsunami of thoughts in my head.
"I thought that maybe we could, I don't know, move my mattress over here?"
Twin pairs of light eyes zero in on me. I notice for the first time that Aidan's eyes are pretty similar to mine. We both have green eyes, while Noah's are light blue.
Maybe we inherited the green eyes from our mother?
I believe that none of my other brothers have the same eye colour, but I am not 100% certain. They have either blue eyes, or dark ones, which makes kind of sense after having seen that picture of their mother with her big, dark brown eyes. The blue eyes must come from our father. I wonder what he looked like.
Do his sons resemble him?
Do I look like him, or do I look like my mother?
Are there any pictures of any of our parents?
"Hey, space cadet, I am talking to you!" Aidan quite rudely interrupts my thoughts.
"What?"
"I asked if you want me and Noah to get your mattress."
His offer once again renders me speechless. I nod wordlessly and before I know it, the two of them hurry out of their room.
Huh?
"Thank you!" I call after them, but I think they have not heard me since I already hear them throw a door open, which I assume is the one to my bedroom.
Huffing and puffing, they return only a few minutes later, each of them holding one end of my single mattress. I am just about to tease them for being weak because they act as if they are moving a full wardrobe, when my duvet lands on top of me, covering me from head to toe. I hear them laugh at my misfortune and smile to myself.
"Go get changed," Noah orders, pulling the covers off me.
"We can watch a movie when you're back," Aidan announces. "Your choice."
I am ready to start believing that somehow an alien has taken hold of my second youngest brother or he has otherwise been possessed by something, because his being-nice-to-Lily act is seriously freaking me out. He must have read my expression correctly, because he adds:
"Noah made me let you choose. But I have a veto in case you want to watch some cringe worthy chick flick shit."
That makes more sense. I flick him off and run out of their room.
Grabbing my pyjamas, I hurry to the bathroom and make quick work of my nightly routine. Five minutes later, I am about to go back to the twins' room when I remember that my phone is still in my room. I probably should take it downstairs where we are supposed to leave our phones during the night. There is really no need to antagonize Alex by disregarding one of his rules right now.
I rush back to my room and grab it from the nightstand. While making my way downstairs, I check it for messages, not expecting there to be any.
I am wrong. There are eight notifications.
This makes me curious, so I type in my passcode as I continue down the stairs. Naturally, since this is me, I trip on one of the last few steps since I have only been paying attention to my phone. But, also because I am me and I consider myself to be generally a very lucky person, Sam chooses this moment to come out of the living room. He catches me before I fall flat on my face.
"What the heck, Lily?" he exclaims, obviously more shocked by what happened than me.
I sheepishly grin up at him.
"Thank you."
"Thank you? Are you kidding me? You could have broken your neck, flying down these stairs like this. Or any other bones of yours. Do you..." he starts to lecture me but then stops with a big, audible sigh.
Taking a closer look at him, I notice that Sam looks weary. Not unlike many of my brothers today. But very unlike him, because he is always so active and fit and healthy and full of energy, even early in the mornings. He claims that this is due to his healthy lifestyle, which is unprecedented in this family. Not even Alex can keep up with Sam's regime. And that is saying something, seeing as he is just as health obsessed as his younger brother.
Anyway, seeing Sam look nothing like himself immediately makes my bad conscience resurface. It is clear to me that my actions, my being so focused on uncovering my family's secrets, has had a bigger impact on everybody than I could have ever imagined.
"I'm sorry," I mutter.
And I don't only mean his having to rescue me from getting injured.
"I know you are. Don't worry about it. I will spare you the lecture because I know you've gotten it plenty of times already. What are you doing up still? And why are you on your phone? It's past 9pm."
"It's Saturday, so I don't have a bedtime," I remind him. "And I was just about to bring my phone downstairs. I forgot that it was still in my room."
"Okay. – Are you going to bed? Or do you want to watch a movie with me?" Sam offers.
Taking a closer look at him, I realise that he is only suggesting this because he wants to be nice to me. I feel tears fill up my eyes and quickly blink a few times to suppress them. How he can still be so considerate with me after I was the cause for bringing up all these bad memoires is a mystery to me.
My big brothers are the best people in this world.
"No, that's fine. I'm about to watch one with the twins, in their room."
"Are you?"
Sam comically raises an eyebrow at that statement. I smile up at him and nod. In a way, I am glad that he finds this pretty astonishing, too. The twins and I don't normally spend Saturday evenings with each other, unless there are other people present. And definitely never just the three of us alone in their room.
"Yep. Also, I am staying in their room tonight," I inform him.
For some reason, I feel the need to let Sam know. Although I don't think that they still do it regularly, since I am definitely not a baby anymore, my adult brothers always used to check up on me when they went to bed. I hardly ever caught them doing so, since I am normally a very deep sleeper, but they have told me that plenty of times.
Also, I think Alex might still be doing it. After today, I don't want them to worry if they find my bed empty. Actually, they could probably tell from the missing mattress that I chose to sleep somewhere else. But it cannot hurt to give him a head's up.
"Okay." Sam drags the y out as he says that, studying me with a curious expression.
"Lily? Did you fall down the toilet?" Noah yells from upstairs.
"Is she even big enough to go to the toilet by herself?" I hear Aidan shout his offensive comment.
Yet another smile ghosts my lips. I am so glad that some things have not changed.
"I guess they're waiting for you," Sam points out unnecessarily.
I nod and call out: "Coming!"
"Good night, squirt," Sam says and kisses the top of my head.
I instinctively wrap my arms around his waist and give him a quick hug. His body seems to shake a bit and I hold on just a bit tighter.
"Good night, Sammy. I love you," I tell him.
One more squeeze and then I let go and hurry to the kitchen. I feel Sam's eyes following me, but I don't turn around to look at him.
Something tells me that it would make me feel like the worst person on this planet if I did. So instead, being the coward I am, I ignore him and with that, I avoid seeing the pain that will undoubtedly be clouding his eyes. I let out a shaky breath, that I didn't even realise I was holding, once I hear his footsteps retreat up the stairs.
Preoccupied with these tantalizing thoughts, I plug in my phone and am just about to walk off when I remember the unread notices. Unlocking the phone, I see that I have two missed phone calls and six messages.
My heart immediately jumps.
The two missed calls are from Sean.
He must have had the same thought as me, when I wondered if I should call him. I check the time and see that he tried to reach me at 8pm and again at 8:30pm.
For a moment, I consider calling him back. But then I remember that is already 11pm where he lives. Also, I still don't think I would know what to say to him. Which is a first and therefore quite scary.
I check the messages and see that four of them are from him, too. The other two are from Alex and Jordan. I read theirs first and they make me smile.
Alex wishes me a good night and tells me I love you, since he couldn't say it in person, like he always does once a day, normally at night. Unless he has to work, like right now. But reading these words, simple and straight to the point, on a day like today makes it more special than on any other day. It leads me to believe that he is not angry with me, which is a big relief.
Jordan's message is similar in that he tells me he loves me, too. But he also says that he is sorry for what happened today and that he is here if I ever want to talk to him about it. As a PS he adds that he actually wants to talk to me whether I seek him out or not.
I think it is the longest message I have ever received from Jordan. He normally only types short ones, sometimes three or four in a row to get his point across. And, although it carries the underlying message that he might give me an earful for disregarding his order and going behind his back by exploring the attic, it makes my heart feel lighter. I will definitely speak to him soon, if only to convince myself that he is okay, too.
Finally, I move on to the four messages from Sean. One was sent before he called me the first time, asking if I was okay and if we could talk. Apparently, when I didn't reply, he decided to call.
The next one suggests that I am upset and don't want to talk to him and he asks me in no uncertain terms to please not ignore his call. This one makes me feel really bad, because I don't want him to think that I am avoiding him. I just don't know what to say to him.
The third message is the one that makes me tear up. Sean apologizes for keeping hurtful secrets and not telling us about Sienna, or our mother. He says it is partially his fault. And he begs me again to call him so that he can explain this to me in person and hopefully make me understand their point of view. His words sound rather desperate to me and I feel like the most horrible person on earth.
I have to wipe my eyes before I am able to read the fourth and final message. It came in about half an hour ago and is simple and honest.
Sean – I hope you are okay. I love you so, so much, baby girl, don't you ever forget that. Sleep well & speak to you soon x.
To me, it is obvious that he is not holding it against me that I made them all face these past memories. Instead, he is the first brother who signals that he wants to help me understand. I tell myself that I will have to get past my reluctance and speak to him tomorrow.
I quickly type a message back to show him that I am not ignoring him.
Me – I love u more. Will call u 2morrow. xxxxxxx
I add a few kissy smiley faces and eventually put my phone down next to the twins' phones. As I walk off, I hear one of them vibrate. I don't have to go back and check whether it was mine, because I am sure of it. A smile graces my lips as I climb upstairs.
If everything else fails, something tells me that I will always have Sean.