Page 8 of Where We Belong

I jog to my bag, answering immediately when I see my little sister’s name on the screen.

“Hey, Jos, what’s up? Everything okay?”

She doesn’t answer right away, which gives me all the warning I need.

“Hey,” she says in a low voice. “Are you busy?”

“Not at all,” I say. Words I wished I could’ve heard throughout my childhood, especially at her age. I remember well enough asking my mother for a glass of milk or for help with my homework and being answered with a “Will you shut up for once?” Josie probably hasn’t even thought that it’s late here for me, but it would never occur to me to make her feel bad for it.

“You haven’t answered my question, though,” I say. “Everything okay?”

She clears her throat. Goosebumps rise on my neck.

“He’s back.”

My stomach clenches, causing bile to rise inside my throat. “Who is?” I ask, but it’s not necessary. Based on her tone, on the element of fear in her voice, I know who she’s talking about.

“Kyle.”

I close my eyes, resisting the urge to repeatedly hit my head against the wall next to me. After cursing under my breath, I ask, “Did he do something?”

“To me? No. He just got here.”

I shouldn’t have left. A few days away, and this happens. My asshole of a half-brother comes back home, and I’m not there to act as a buffer between him and Josie.

The urge to leave Phoenix had become something close to survival instinct in the last year. Growing up, I never felt completely safe inside my own home, either because of Kyle, Mom’s boyfriends, or Mom herself, but these last months, it had gotten to a point of no return. I felt like if I didn’t leave, I’d end up getting into a fight where one of us wouldn’t come out alive, and I didn’t want to risk it.

But I guess that makesmethe asshole, because I left my little sister to deal with it—no escape option for her.

“I’m so sorry, Jos. I honestly didn’t think he’d be back so fast.” A month ago, he left the house after finding “the next big thing to invest in,” but that likely flopped, just like his projects always do. If I’ve learned one thing about my brother over the years, it’s that he’s a lazy bastard who will drop whatever he’s doing the second it takes a minimum amount of effort or time. However, he’s never bounced back this fast. It usually takes a couple of months for him to abandon his quests.

“Me neither,” she says. At eleven years old, she’s had to grow way too fast, and even though she’s a tough kid, I can hear the treble in her voice. It breaks my heart into a thousand pieces.

“I’m coming back,” I declare, getting to my feet. If I leave in an hour, I could be home in three days, maybe less if I don’t stop for more than a few hours at a time. Then, if it’s too bad out there, I’ll just take Josie with me and leave. Anywhere would be better than there.

“No,” she says. “You can’t.”

“Damn right I can.”

“No, you can’t. This is your dream. You need to do it.”

I bite my bottom lip so hard it starts bleeding. What kind of person am I, prioritizing gymnastics over everything, to the point where my own sister thinks it’s more important than she is?

“Jos—”

“I don’t want you to come back. I swear. It’ll just cause more drama and more fighting.”

Another jab. While Josie usually lets things slide and locks herself in her room most of the time to avoid trouble, I’m always smack dab in the middle of it. It never occurred to me that I might’ve been as much of a bother to her as the rest of my family was.

“I’m serious, Lex. I didn’t call you for that. I just thought you should know.”

I wipe a bead of sweat running down my temple with the back of my hand. “Let me at least call Mom and talk to her,” I say. Our mother has put us through enough shit. The least she can do is make sure her son doesn’t make Josie’s life a living hell.

“All right,” my sister ends up saying.

“Thank you.”

“But you’re going to stay in Vermont, right?”

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