Chapter 2: Arrival.

My flight was a 20-hour flight, and we arrived in Boston at 3:30 p.m. the next day. After collecting my luggage, I cleared customs and went down the escalators. I wasn’t expecting to see my family right away—my other family. I felt I had to be the one to look for them. But halfway down the escalator, I heard a little soft voice call out my name.

“Jay!”

It was Emily. I immediately spotted her running towards the escalators, leaving Dominic, Mom, and Jake behind. I hurried down to meet her, and she jumped right into my arms for a hug.

“Em!” I hugged her so tightly. “You’re all grown up now.”

She pulled back and gave me a cute smile. She was bigger than the last time I’d seen her during Easter.

“What are you, like eight now or something?” I teased, bending low to her level.

“No, I’m turning six in two months,” she said, grinning wide. A tooth was missing.

“I know, bean.” I smiled back at her.

I might not have been home for a long time, but we still saw each other about six times a year when she came over to South Africa with Mom. And we FaceTimed almost all the time.

“Jay,” Mom called out.

I stood back up and gave her a hug.

“I’ve missed you, baby,” she said. It was obvious from the way she spoke, from the way she held me, keeping her hands at the back of my head.

“I’ve missed you too, Mom.”

She looked pale in a way. It must have been from the exhaustion of taking care of Emily—she could be a lot at times.

“Kiddo.” Dominic, my stepfather, gave me a side hug. “Welcome home, kid.”

I smiled at him. I had missed him too—him and his ridiculous rules.

Jake, my twin brother, stood behind them making a call.

“Riley, I’m sorry I left without telling you. Could we just talk about this later when we meet up?” he said into the phone. It was probably one of the many girls Emily had told me about.

We might have been identical, but we were two very different people with two very different personalities. He finished his call and turned back to us.

“Hey, brother,” he said.

I could barely recognize him anymore. I wasn’t sure if it was the hair he’d dyed or the way he dressed. Maybe both.

“Hi.”

I wasn’t sure how to behave around him. I did leave without saying goodbye, and the two times we’d seen each other over the years, we spoke, but it wasn’t deep. I didn’t exactly know if he was pretending with me then, just because he was told to.

“Come on, give me a hug, brother.”

Oh, seriously? I wasn’t expecting that. His excitement at seeing me was surprising, and he basically lifted me up while hugging me.

Seeing all of this—all of them welcoming me warmly—made me feel like maybe it wasn’t so bad coming after all. Well, except for the fact that Nathan, my stepbrother, wasn’t there. I would be lying if I said I expected to see him.

Dominic stepped aside to make a call. It would have been bad of me not to ask about him, so I had to.

“Where is Nathan?” I asked after hugging Jake.

I could see their awkward expressions.

“Um, he’s busy, honey,” Mom answered.

“Or he isn’t happy Jay’s back, so he decided not to come,” Emily said truthfully.

“Emily, stop it,” Mom cautioned.

“Sorry, Mom,” she apologized.

But she was right, and I knew it.

“Our drive is here. I think we should start leaving,” Dom said, turning back after ending his call.

Dominic and I took a separate car from Mom, Emily, and Jake. They needed to stop by the mall for something for Emily’s play stuff or so. The drive from the airport home was really nice. I got to see the beautiful views of Boston again and realized how much I had missed it.

“Jay, good job on the award you won. Sorry, we couldn’t make it,” Dominic said to me. He was sitting directly beside me as our driver drove.

“It’s fine, it’s nothing anyway.” The award wasn’t a big deal. If not for Iris, my work was never supposed to have gotten out there.

“No, it is, and we are very proud of you, Jay—your mom and I,” he said, placing his hand on my shoulder.

“Yeah, thanks, Dom.” I smiled at him, then looked back out the window, soaking in the beautiful city view.

The drive brought back a lot of memories with Jake, Nathan, and me. I remembered when Max, our sugar glider that we found on the lawn and raised, died because one of us forgot to lock his cage. He tried gliding on his own but got smashed. We were all so sad about his death. Then Dominic came, took us for ice cream, and drove us around the city. Those were good days, and sometimes I wished everything had just stayed that way.

We got to the mansion later in the evening, and it was exactly as I remembered it—beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, ancient, and neat. I got down from the car, breathing in the fresh air, when Dominic called out a name. I immediately turned in his direction.

Behold, standing right in front of him was Nathan—not so much the troublemaker and funny twelve-year-old I once knew.