Jules can’t believe his little sister has a boyfriend.
She’s growing up so fast, he thinks. When he left, she was barely a teenager.
Usually, he tries not to think about her. It hurts too much. With her missing, though, he has no choice. It’s strange, however, that their father called him. He wouldn’t have thought he cared enough.
In the time that he lived with her, she was irritating, as all younger siblings are, but that didn’t change the fact that he loved her. A pang of regret hits him as he remembers how he told her to leave him alone, shutting the door on her as he tramped into his room after one of those encounters with their father.
He had to calm down after those experiences, of course. Learn how to breathe again after his father’s words snaked their ways around his neck. Still, he should have spent more time with her when he had the opportunity. He should have tried to check in with her after those times, to see if she was alright.
Now, who knows where she is. Maybe out in the city. Maybe she decided to just leave. Get on a train and see where it takes her. Maybe this was planned out, or maybe it was a spur-of-the-moment thing.
He needs to find her, he decides. He owes her this much. Not that he doesn’t think she’s capable– he knows she’s strong, and she must have developed the ability to be quick-witted after all these years of dealing with their father, but the worry spinning around his mind like a fan is inevitable.
Afterwards, he’ll tease her for copying him. He was around this age when he left, after all. It’s a miracle that he managed to get away with living without a parent or guardian for his entire seventeenth year.
Besides, April’s smart. She deserves to finish high school and go to college, not get stuck working scattered minimum wage jobs to pay for a shared apartment like he does.
Sometimes, he regrets leaving. He would’ve gotten his expenses paid for another year, but money’s not the thing he craves most. He would have gotten to be the person his sister came to for advice, and that’s something he would give up anything for.
At the same time, though, he knows he wouldn’t have been able to put up with his father for another year. He could have taken April with him, but he didn’t want to ruin her education.
If he had thought that her life would have been in danger, he would have no doubt taken her. But his father wouldn’t go that far, and he knows that. He can be an overprotective, overbearing force, but he wouldn’t let anyone –including himself– lay a finger on his daughter.
Besides, it’s not so bad here. He has his paintings and his friends and the river that he can swim in.
But he’s been looking for a way to see April, and this feels like an opportunity that’s going to be pulled out of his reach if he doesn’t grab it soon. She might never go back to the house they grew up in, and as long as they haven’t moved since he left, that was his only way of contacting her. He’d been too much of a coward to go back, and now it might be too late.
He needs to talk to her. The problem is, despite the fact she had a phone when he left, there’s a good chance his number is blocked. Not to mention, of course, his father’s likely control over who she’s allowed to talk to.
He has to try. Tentatively, he picks up his phone and dials her number. He hasn’t tried to contact her over the past few years, but the number is still burned into his mind, stinging every time he thinks about it.
The phone rings, but no one answers.
He immediately tries again. Maybe she’ll see the missed calls and call him back. He knows that he’s giving himself false hope, but he doesn’t care.
No one answers. He tries for the third time.
He’s about to abandon all hope when he hears the sound stop after just two rings.
“Hello?”