Chapter Two
Zac

I glanced up at the clock for what must have been the thousandth time that day, my vision blurred by the torturously boring book I had held my eyes to for the last three hours, never getting past the first page. It was only eleven. Annie had promised they’d be there by noon.

“Nervous?” Isaac asked me from where he was sitting at the desk in front of the computer. He had been staring just as blankly at that screen as I had been staring at my book.

“No,” I replied. “I’m beyond nervous.”

He nodded as if in agreement, but said, “I guess.”

“You’re not?”

“I don’t know,” he said back, his voice completely devoid of emotion as I had grown used to it being. Getting more than a short, slightly cold answer from Isaac these days was something to be happy about. In some cases, anyway. In others it really sucked. Especially when you wanted to hear the words of big brotherly comfort that you knew he would have offered you if the situation was not what it was and what it had been over the past couple of weeks.

He stayed silent after that so I knew he probably wasn’t going to go on. I leaned over, resting my elbows on the dark blue comforter on my bed--Taylor’s old one--and began rubbing my temples with my palm, messing up my hair in the process.

I hadn’t seen Taylor in so long and questions about what it would be like to see him again would not stop flying around in my mind like birds without cages. How had he changed? Had he changed at all? How would he act toward us? How did he expect us to act toward him? How were we supposed to act toward his...family? Was he as nervous about this as I was? Did he still love us?

I was perfectly aware that that last question was borderline absurd. In my heart I knew that he would still love us and that he would always love us. We had been his brothers and sisters and mother and father all his life and nothing--not even the fact that the blood running through his veins was not the same as ours--would ever change that for him. But in my head I wasn’t so sure. And sometimes you can’t get your head to shut up long enough to hear you heart.

“The main question I’m asking myself right now,” I recited my current thoughts out loud to my brother, wondering if he was even going to listen to what I was saying, “is whether or not I’m still angry.”

“Oh?” was all he said in response.

I tried not to be offended by the response I got instead of a reciprocation, which was what I wanted. I knew he wasn’t asking himself that question yet or wouldn’t have to very many times if he did. Saying Isaac was angry when Taylor left was like saying the sky is big. And it was no secret that that had changed very little, if at all, in the time that had passed.

I opened my mouth to say something, but closed it again when I thought better of it. There was enough tension around the house without me asking Isaac stupid questions that he couldn’t have answered at the time. Questions of whether or not he was ever going to forgive Taylor.

I sighed, hopes of comforting brotherly words all but vanished and lay back on the bed, opening the book I couldn’t follow once more.

As I did so, I glanced up at the clock again. 11:23 a.m.

Don't make me beg so early in the game. Like it or hate it? :-)
Chapter One
Chapter Three