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Naturally, the one day I need to be home on time is the day the trains are running late and it’s pouring rain. I pull my hood up but the water just seeps into my hair through the fabric. I can barely see through the fog in my specs and the sheets of rain, but I manage to spot a small awning which I make my way under pull out my phone before remembering that it’s dead.
Squinting a few feet ahead I notice a phone booth. It’s more rust than steel and probably has tetanus crawling all over it but it’s my only shot at contacting my mother.
I tighten my hood and raise my backpack above my head which does little to shield my already drenched head and huddle myself inside the box before dialing my mother’s number.
Unsurprisingly, she answers on the first ring.
“Eleanor Montague, who is this?”
I have to practically bury the phone in my ear to hear her because of how soft her voice is. “Mother, it’s me.”
“Felicity? Are you alright?”
“Yes, Mother, I’m fine.” I say flatly. “Just stuck in the rain.”
I hear babbling in the background and shifting, she must be holding my little brother while on the phone with me. “Oh dear. How soon can you be home?”
“Next train is in an hour and a half.”
“Felicity,” she chides. “I don’t want you on the train in this weather.”
I can just picture her face—pinching the bridge of her nose, brow furrowed. It’s a face reserved especially for me. I haven’t seen her use it on anyone else, not when Monty came home with a bloody nose and tattered clothes or even when baby Adrian started drawing on the walls with his own shit. It’s the Felicity, why must you? face.
“I’ll be fine, Mother.” I manage to keep my voice level if a little colder.
She’s almost begging now. “Please just call your brother to pick you up.”
“I would rather do anything else. I would rather walk home.” I say before I can stop myself.
“Felicity Montague.” She hisses, the sharpness of it startling me. “Call Henry. Come home.”
There’s an uncomfortable silence, I think I hear the rumble of my father’s voice in the background, and I don’t want to deal with him almost more than I didn’t want to deal with my mother.
“Fine, fine. I’ll see you soon.”
“Goodbye, sweetheart. I love—”
I hang up, wincing as I cut her off before dialing my brother’s number. I can’t believe I still remember it. Each press of the button is taking more and more strength. I don’t remember the last time we spoke to one another over the phone since he left for university with his best friend—now lover, according to his Instagram—Percy. Especially not of my own volition.
Eventually I raise the phone back to my ear and wait for him to pick up. Then I hear the tell-tale click and wait.
“Richard, I swear to god, the number of phones you’ve gone through to avoid my blocks, do you really miss my—"
“Please do not finish that sentence.” I cut him off. I’m already regretting this.
“Oh. Uh. Sorry, who is this?”
I let out such a long sigh that for a moment I don’t recognize it as my own voice and rather my mother’s. “Monty, it’s Felicity.”
“Oh. Oh! Feli! How are you, darling, I—” I can almost hear him smile over the phone which I don’t understand. He’s never been happy to hear from me in his life.
“I need a favor.”
There’s a slight pause. “Right. Of course. You’d never—yeah, okay. What’d you need?”
“I’m stuck in the rain—”
“Wait, you’re outside?”
I can’t help but roll my eyes at the payphone. “Yes, that’s where the rain is. I’m at the train station but the train is running late and Mother wanted to know if you’d pick me up and drop me home.”
“Why can’t you just come here?”
I don’t like the direction this is going. “Here—where, exactly?”
“To my place.” He says it as if it’s obvious. “Mine and Percy’s. You’re on Pit, right?”
I frown. “Yes, Pit and Ashley.”
“Right, so I’ll just bring you here. It’ll be easier than taking you all the way to Cheshire.”
Riding in my estranged brother’s car was already something I was not looking forward to. Sitting with said estranged brother and his best-friend-turned-lover in said estranged brother’s house sounds like my own personal hell. “You know what, I think I’ll just call Sim, thank you for your time—”
“Your scary friend with the eyeliner? She’s about an hour from where you are!” Since when does Monty remember my friends?
“I can wait!”
“No, I’m coming.” I can faintly hear the sound of keys jangling and a coat being drawn from its hanger. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Monty, you really don’t have to—”
“I’m going to.”
“Why? I just said you don’t have to!”
“Because I’m your big brother, Feli,” I hear him bring the phone closer to his mouth because his voice goes all small and round. “I haven’t acted like it for too damn long but I’m not going to let you stop me from trying.”
Someone should tell him to not drop such bombshells over the fucking phone when I need my brain to be focused on getting myself out of the rain and not mulling over those words. I don’t have a response ready for that besides a scream. And half of me wants to scream. If it wasn’t so bloody dark and I wasn’t standing in a phone booth with about three people behind me in the pouring rain, then maybe I would. But instead, I say, “I’ll be waiting at the train station.” And hang up.
The ten minutes might as well have been ten seconds because however long it was, it wasn’t long enough. He rolls the window down and waves to me wildly, his hand hitting the rear-view mirror which already doesn’t seem to be doing too good. With a heaving sigh, I make my way over to his car and slide into the passenger seat without a word.
“I know you’re wet,” he begins, “but I was hoping for at least a hello.”
“Can we just go?” I huff, moving a piece of hair stuck to my forehead to the other side.
“Yeah. Yeah, sorry.”
It’s a while before either of us say anything again. At times he opens his mouth like he wants to but then he glances at me and closes it again. I don’t know how we used to live in the same house. How we shared a wall. Did we do this same dance amidst screaming matches and blaming each other for every minor inconvenience?
Eventually I can’t keep it in any longer, the thought that’s been circling my brain since our phone call. “I hope you know that you’re not.” I let the words escape my lips as cold as they were just rolling around in my head. “Trying, that is.” I wish I sounded surer of them, but the chattering of my teeth won’t allow me.
He scowls, looking down. “Trying what?”
“Being my big brother.”
I register the hurt that flashes across his face and I wait for the words that will follow, the anger that neither of us really have to rear its head.
But he just takes a deep breath and looks at me, watery blue eyes imploring and pitiful. “How am I supposed to try when this is how you act when I do?”
Twice in one day, my brother has rendered me speechless.
But he’s not done. “You know, Mother calls every week. She has Percy’s birthday and our anniversary memorized. She sends me a text every morning and maybe a meme that only she finds funny.” He laughs but there’s no humor in it. “You haven’t called me once. Unless, of course, you need me to do something for you.”
“You haven’t called me either.” I point out. It’s a weak argument but it’s better than having nothing to say. “But what would we even talk about if you did?”
“I don’t know!” Monty grips the wheel harder, scooching down in his seat to press one of the pedals. “The fucking weather—I don’t know.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Well, we’re pathetic, aren’t we? Pathetic at being siblings anyway.” He makes a strange noise, muffling it in his sleeve. Oh, good lord, he’s crying.
“Monty?”
“I’m sorry.” He mumbles. “I’m sorry, okay, I just—I know I missed my chance at being your brother a long time ago. I messed it up.”
“It’s not all your fault.” I say, because it’s true. I like to pretend it was all his fault because it’s easier to stomach than the alternative.
“Mostly.”
“Maybe.”
“You’re the worst,” he rolls his eyes, but there’s no bite in his words. “Anyway, Feli, you’re incredible. You’re abso-bloody-lutely brilliant which is good because at least one of us got the brains.”
“You never know, Adrian could take my spot.”
He actually snorts and swats the side of my arm playfully which only makes me laugh. “Please. Mother sent me very high-resolution pictures of his… artwork.” He cringes. “A real Picasso, he is.” I haven’t laughed with him like this in too long but now it all just bubbles out of me—years overdue. Eventually the laughter dies down, and he and I are back at our unsettling silence.
“So.” He says plainly.
“So,” I start. “We’re pathetic at being siblings.”
“Absolutely dreadful.”
“Right.” My lips quirk up into what I hope is a smile. “So, what about being friends?”
He smiles too, a really bright one that I haven’t seen in years. “Alright. Friends, then.”
And then he leans over—which is definitely not safe for driving and I’m about to tell him so but then he places a soft kiss to my forehead and sinks back into his seat and, for a second, I don’t really mind.