Coming Home

Author's Note: This one is an homage to Xarth, one of my favourite authors (check my favourites list), roughly inspired by the very first story they posted - 'Kaylee'.

- .... .- -. -.- ... -..- .- .-. - ....

The welcome party at the airport set the tone for my return home.

By which I meant the complete absence of a single person.

I had sort of left things in a bad way, when I left, so it was partially my fault. Mostly my fault... All my fault.

I was head-over-heels for my girlfriend, so when she had proposed moving to Paris, I may have resisted at first, but she won out in the end. We packed our bags, ignored everyone telling us it was a terrible idea, and headed out.

She had instantly fallen in love with the city. Sinking all of our savings into this tiny 2-bit cafe off a side street, despite the fact neither of us had any experience in either business or cooking.

Instead of romance in the world's most romantic city, all I got was fucked.

The daily stress of keeping things running, just above sinking beneath all the debt, was absolutely crushing me. We were just barely scraping by, when about six months into the venture, she started finding excuses to be elsewhere, or work less, and I became a burned out husk.

In the end, it was too much.

I didn't have enough money to think about buying a plane ticket home, so I was forced to reach out to my parents, begging. They agreed to it, and even offered to clear my debt so I could safely leave the nation, on the one condition:

That when I came home, I actually came home.

I would live under their roof, and get a job and pay my way, until they were satisfied that not only had I paid them back, I had demonstrated I could live independently without screwing up my entire life.

So, only twelve months after I left, I found myself back in my birth nation, in a busy and clean airport. It felt lonely and clinical as I made my way through it, collected my one suitcase that was now the sum total of my possessions, and caught a ride share back to my parents' house.

Arriving on the doorstep, I saw that their cars were missing, probably at work. Earning their way without naive and stupid dreams. However, I also saw that another car was parked in front of the house.

A familiar, beat-up red little hatchback.

It had been a gift, back when I had a bank account that wasn't completely laughable, from me to my younger sister. A congratulations for her earning her driver's license.

Which meant that she was still living with my parents, probably. She'd never exactly been in a hurry to move out. She was twenty, this year. I'd already missed her birthday, and hadn't been able to send her any kind of present.

I hadn't said goodbye, before I left, either.

I was not looking forward to this conversation, especially without our casual-going parents to buffer the inevitable screaming back and forth. She had a way of getting under my skin, even when she was right.

I usually made her cry, in the end.

I fumbled with my keys, finding the old key from when I'd called this place home, and entered the house slowly. I called out as I closed the door, "Laura, you home?"

I wheeled the case down the length of the hallway, passed a bunch of landscape paintings. Most of them were as familiar to me as the back of my hand. However, there were a couple of new ones. All of them signed with a tiny L.W. in the bottom left corner.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, readying myself to try and head to my childhood bedroom... And passed her room. Hoping to hell she was either not home, or hadn't heard me.

I heard that God hated me when I got halfway up the stairs. A door creaking open, and soft footfalls on the carpet.

She came into view, her cascading black hair falling all the way to her hips. She instinctively tucked a strand behind one ear, and looked at me as if I'd just thrown up all over the floor. "Oh. It's you."

I flinched, waiting for the rant.

She turned and walked back to her room quietly. Didn't even slam her door. I think I would have preferred it if she lashed out at me, instead of... This.

I dragged my suitcase, and my guilt, off to my bedroom.

-.-. --- -- .. -. --. .... --- -- .

She didn't speak to me for about a week after that.

I managed to wrangle a job at a fast food place from an old friend who was now a director or some other managerial title that was only distantly connected with what they actually did.

Our parents didn't dress me down, or even mention where or why I'd gone. They set my board rates, and then did what they could to help. Even offering to help me get a car to make things easier.

I turned them down.

Not because I didn't need it, but mostly because the guilt was already eating me alive. I was the family failure, who had actually believed a crazy girl when she said she loved me and wanted to live in France with me.

So when it came to meal times... Our parents tried to keep the conversation light and flowing. Laura absolutely refused to even look in my direction and always pretended to not hear me.

In the end, I stopped saying anything to anyone.

"Laura, why don't you take Bren out this weekend?" Mum suddenly said one dinnertime, "He's been moping around the house, too much. And you should get out of your room, once in a while, too."

The girl shot a wrath-filled look back at her mother. The kind of look that would make even a drunk guy at a bar reconsider the life choices that had led him to speaking to her.

Mum, however... "Why don't you take him up to the hill, at least, and get some air? It's been ages since you painted anything."

"Huh?" I said in surprise, "I saw a couple new ones in the hall. You stopped painting, Lor?"

"Don't feel like it." She said quietly, angrily. She didn't look at me to say it, but it made my stomach fill with butterflies at the fact she was actually talking to me.

I needed to keep this going.

"Didn't you have an exhibition, right before I left?" I asked her, "You were so excited for it. You got put in the entrance of the gallery."

She ground her teeth together, fists clenching as she lowered her cutlery. "It didn't happen, Brendan. Which you'd know, if you gave a damn."

"Laura!" Mum admonished.

My sister shoved her chair back, and picked up her food, "I'm not hungry. For some reason."

Then she went to the kitchen, scraped her plate, before heading up the stairs and slamming her bedroom door.

Anger was a new emotion. Better than being ignored... Maybe.

I sighed and looked at my own plate, with about as much appetite as she had just demonstrated. I pushed a potato idly with my fork, sighing heavily.

"Have you two... Talked?" Dad asked.

I shook my head, "That's the most she's said to me since I got back. I... I want to apologise. But, we have to be in the same room for that."

"If you two need some space from us, let us know." He said sympathetically, "Your mother and I will make ourselves scarce."

"What am I meant to say?" I shrugged, "I fucked up."

"Language." Mum said reflexively.

I smiled sadly, "How would you describe it? I abandoned my family. Ran myself face-first into the ground, and then came crawling home. I missed her first exhibition, which apparently didn't even happen. I missed her birthday, even though that used to always be our thing. She got a single letter from me when I was gone, where I lied through my teeth and said how awesome it all was."

"You done fucked up." Dad said, to his wife's glare. "But, Bren, you still need to find a way to fix this. It might take some time. It might take more effort than you're used to putting into things. It still needs to happen."

"Don't disagree." I sighed.

"Want me to put that away as a lunch for tomorrow?" Mum said, indicating my plate. Ever the practical one.

"Thanks. I can do it." I stood up.

She took the plate anyways, and pointed to the stairs, "You've got more important things to do. Your father and I are going out to the movies. You... Might be able to tempt Laura out with a movie of your own."

"Really?" I said without much hope.

My dad nodded, "She's been binge watching action movies lately. You know the kind. Ones with one-liners and exploding cars. She prefers the big TV down here than her laptop, so she might just come out... But I'd add some popcorn."

-.-. --- -- .. -. --. .... --- -- .

I took a deep breath and knocked on the door, "Laura?"

Nothing but the sound of silence.

"Uh, Mum and Dad have gone out. Movies." I continued to talk to the door, "So I was thinking... Maybe you'd want to watch something? I'm cooking fresh popcorn, like we used to. At least with a movie you don't have to talk to me. Or look at me."

The door opened a crack, and she glared through it. Looking less like the cute thing I knew, and some creepy spirit about to murder me, with her long hair.

"You can pick the movie." I offered.

She opened the door tiredly and breezed passed me. The transformation as she stepped into good light was startling. She was wearing just an extra-large t-shirt, and from behind, she definitely still had her perfect ass.

I walked down behind her as she headed to the lounge, and the couch, and I went to the kitchen to cook.

It didn't take me long to fill a couple of buckets, with a practised hand. With those in hand, I headed into the room, and flicked the lights off as she brought up some car chase film.

I handed her a bucket and sat down next to her. "Hey."

"Hey." She said emotionlessly as she stared at the movie logos like they were the most enthralling thing in the universe.

"I... I wanted to say sorry. For everything." I said quietly, "Can we talk, first? Or I can shut up, and we can watch the movie."

"You're talking, now. May as well keep going." She replied, with the same distinct lack of anything in her voice.

I leaned my head into my hands, "I... Fucked up. In every way. I abandoned you, and I... I should never have left. Especially without even telling you I was going. I'm sorry."

"Guess I just wasn't important enough for you to care." She fired the shot into me as sure as any hero taking his final shot against a villain, but with only the slightest hint of any anger.

I cringed, "It... It wasn't like that, Lor. It wasn't. I wanted to be here for you, and to see your art. I wanted to spend your birthday with you. I just..."

"What?" Her voice cracked, a hint of her seething wrath about ready to escape.

"I thought I had to. I thought that if I stayed, I'd never see her again. I thought I loved her. I couldn't handle the idea of someone I loved disappearing and me never seeing them again."

The moment it left my mouth, I regretted it.

She stood up and flicked the TV off, tossing the remote at me and picking up the popcorn as she headed into the hallway. "Me neither, Bren. Me neither."

"Lor!"

She didn't come back, and I was pretty sure that if I chased her down it would only make things worse.

I left a small post-it on the kitchen table for our parents, letting them know I'd only hurt her more, and then headed for my bedroom across the hall from hers.

As I sat on the bed, head in my hands, I could hear her crying.

-.-. --- -- .. -. --. .... --- -- .

It was mid-afternoon the next day when I got a knock on the door.

"S'open."

My mum entered the room quietly, closing the door behind her, and crossing to sit on the edge of the bed I was still in. Just me, depression, and a laptop with sad movies and social media.

"Not going so well, is it?" She said sympathetically.

I shrugged, "My fault. I'm trying to pick up the pieces... But it feels like things are too broken. You and dad have been amazing, but... I don't think I can fix things with Lor. Ever."

"You're wrong. Mostly because you don't see things the way that she does." Mum said quietly, and I noticed that she was holding a book in her lap. Some kind of diary, with one of those cheap little locks on it.

I sighed heavily, "Why didn't the exhibition happen? She was so excited for that. Finally acknowledged as an artist."

"She cancelled it."

I stared, "She worked years for that. She... Because of me?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, I'd soften it if I could." She sighed heavily, "After you left, Laura stopped coming out of her room altogether. I used to leave her meals at her door. I didn't see her in-person for months."

"Oh."

Mum sighed even heavier, "So, being the worried mother that I was, I may have... Snuck into her room when she was asleep. Found this."

"That is a massive invasion of privacy."

She nodded, "Already been yelled at for that, Brendan. But... It helped me understand. I think you should read it. Help understand her, and why you need to make an effort. A different effort, maybe, than you've been trying."

"Huh?"

She put the book on the bed, "Read it. Your father and I are going out again, tonight. The weekend is almost over, don't waste it."

With that, she left.

I still hesitated before picking up the little black covered book. This was my sister's diary. Her closest and deepest secrets. I'd never invaded her privacy like this, before.

"Where the fuck is it!?" Laura suddenly screamed down the hall.

I shoved the book under my blanket, not wanting to be caught with the offending item by someone who already hated me.

"Where's what, Laura?" Mum called back up the stairs, innocently.

Laura roared in response, "My diary, you bitch! You took it, again!"

"Call me a bitch again, young lady."

My sister's response was too quiet for me to make out, but our mother's wasn't. "I gave it to Brendan. He needs to know."

My door flung open, and Laura stood intimidatingly in the doorway. She glared at me, as I tried to shrink away from her. "Where. Is. It?"

I pulled the diary out slowly, "I... Didn't read it."

She snatched it quickly, and turned to storm away, but paused in the doorway, glaring back at me, "Sorry. I guess. Not your fault. For once."

With that strange half-apology, she was gone, again. Disappeared into her bedroom as I considered what the hell I was supposed to have found inside it.

-.-. --- -- .. -. --. .... --- -- .

A couple hours after our parents had let us know they were leaving, I heard a knock at the door, and rolled over. Not wanting to face her.

The door opened slowly, as I pretended to be reading something on my computer. "What?"

"I made dinner." Laura said emotionlessly.

I didn't want to face her. Not after the way I had completely fucked it over the last time. If we were alone together, I'd just end up hurting her worse. "Thanks, but I'm not hungry."

"Bullshit." Laura swore and walked over and pulled on my shoulder, "Get up."

I turned to face her, and swallowed as I saw the pain in her eyes. The pain that I had caused. "'Kay. Just give me a minute."

Laura sat on the edge of the bed, "I'm not angry about the diary. That was just Mum being... Weird."

"I got that." I shrugged, and sat up, pushing the covers back. "I just... I can't. Okay? I've tried, and I can't. I don't know how else to apologise to you."

She heard it in my voice, and looked at me in concern, "Are you okay, Bren?"

"Fuck, no." I scoffed, "I lost my girlfriend, my job, my home. I've got nothing. The only thing I have is my family, and apparently you hate me. Why on earth would I be okay?"

"I don't hate you." She said, as if surprised.

I shrugged, "Really? I'd deserve it."

"I thought I hated you, maybe. When you first took off with that bitch." Laura said quietly, looking down and her hair falling across her face. She tucked a strand back, "I was... Miserable. I got angry, and worried and... Sad. Just... Sad."

As her hair fell again, I reached up and brushed it aside for her, smiling as best I could. "Heard you imploded. My fault. Who wouldn't think you hated me?"

"I love you, Bren." She said, grabbing my hand. She smiled with tears in her eyes, "I know you feel bad about everything that happened. But it wasn't like nothing happened to you, either. You left her in France. That has to hurt, right?"

"Less than you'd think."

Laura sat up on the bed, cross-legged, and cocked her head, "What happened in France?"

"Probably heard she basically left managing things to me."

She nodded, "Yeah. Dad mentioned it. Said it would have been hell, and so I should give you some leeway. I... I'm sorry. That I avoided you. It was just hard, seeing you again."

"I expected you to scream at me. I would have deserved it."

Laura shook her head, "Stop saying that. You didn't deserve it. You were telling me about what happened. What really happened."

"Whilst I was working, she was... You know how I can't paint, Lor?"

She raised an eyebrow, "Yeah?"

"Her boyfriend could. Even sold a few pieces of his in our restaurant." I said bitterly.

Laura winced, "Oh."

I shrugged, "My fault for following her. Should have stayed here. With you."

She looked at me with a sort of confused but serious face, before suddenly leaning down. Her hair fell around my face, a moment before her lips met mine.

I breathed in sharply, surprised.

She lingered a moment longer than felt familial, innocent, and then leaned back. She tucked her hair aside, and smiled at me, "There. Now, you're forgiven. Come on, I baked brownies for desert."

"You learned to cook?"

-.-. --- -- .. -. --. .... --- -- .

When our parents came back early the next morning, they found some dishes in the dishwasher, and the two of us asleep in front of the TV. Action movie still playing, with Laura wrapped up in a blanket, her head in my lap.

They sent the both of us to bed, but as Laura headed up the stairs, Dad took me aside and out of earshot. "That seemed positive."

"She forgave me." I whispered back, "Cooked, too. So I guess I might just be out of the doghouse."

"Not quite." He replied and screwed up his face, struggling to come up with a way to say something he wanted to. "There are some things you need to learn on your own. Just know that your mother and I will support you, when the time comes. If it does."

"What?"

He shrugged, "We're always there for the both of you. You'll understand one day. Mean time, you should head to bed. Work in the morning."

That conversation answered exactly zero questions of mine, and raised a whole heap of others.

What the hell was in the diary?

The question kept me awake until the early hours. Making me even more a drone when I stumbled in for my shift, than normal. Thankfully, you're not really expected to have a soul when working fastfood.

-.-. --- -- .. -. --. .... --- -- .

Laura surprised the rest of us the following weekend by asking mum and dad if they could give us some space, Saturday night. The two instantly agreed, and exchanged knowing and flirtatious looks.

My sister and I exchanged slightly grossed-out looks, reminding ourselves to not ask what the folks were going to be doing, whilst we were watching a movie.

Well, I'd expected to watch a movie.

That night, when I went to start making popcorn, Laura came down from her room with a picnic basket. "Uh uh. I've already got everything we need, right here."

"No... Movie?"

She smiled sheepishly, "I wanted to go up to the hill, like we used to."

"Then why did you kick the folks out of the house?" I asked in confusion as she handed me the basket.

Laura shrugged, "It'll make sense, later. Probably. Ugh. Nevermind, can you just go put that in the car? I'm just grabbing my painting stuff. 'Kay?"

I crammed myself into the front seat of her tiny car, whilst she put her easel and things onto the backseat, barely fitting it all. Then she drove us the half hour to the lookout.

As I set out the picnic rug, she rolled up her sleeves, tied her hair into a ponytail, and began to paint.