Jules can\u2019t believe his little sister has a boyfriend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
She\u2019s growing up so fast,<\/em> he thinks. When he left, she was barely a teenager. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Usually, he tries not to think about her. It hurts too much. With her missing, though, he has no choice. It\u2019s strange, however, that their father called him. He wouldn\u2019t have thought he cared enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the time that he lived with her, she was irritating, as all younger siblings are, but that didn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He had to calm down after those experiences, of course. Learn how to breathe again after his father\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He needs to find her, he decides. He owes her this much. Not that he doesn\u2019t think she\u2019s capable\u2013 he knows she\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Afterwards, he\u2019ll tease her for copying him. He was around this age when he left, after all. It\u2019s a miracle that he managed to get away with living without a parent or guardian for his entire seventeenth year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides, April\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sometimes, he regrets leaving. He would\u2019ve gotten his expenses paid for another year, but money\u2019s not the thing he craves most. He would have gotten to be the person his sister came to for advice, and that\u2019s something he would give up anything for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the same time, though, he knows he wouldn\u2019t have been able to put up with his father for another year. He could have taken April with him, but he didn\u2019t want to ruin her education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If he had thought that her life would have been in danger, he would have no doubt taken her. But his father wouldn\u2019t go that far, and he knows that. He can be an overprotective, overbearing force, but he wouldn\u2019t let anyone \u2013including himself\u2013 lay a finger on his daughter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides, it\u2019s not so bad here. He has his paintings and his friends and the river that he can swim in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But he\u2019s been looking for a way to see April, and this feels like an opportunity that\u2019s going to be pulled out of his reach if he doesn\u2019t grab it soon. She might never go back to the house they grew up in, and as long as they haven\u2019t moved since he left, that was his only way of contacting her. He\u2019d been too much of a coward to go back, and now it might be too late. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He needs to talk to her. The problem is, despite the fact she had a phone when he left, there\u2019s a good chance his number is blocked. Not to mention, of course, his father\u2019s likely control over who she\u2019s allowed to talk to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He has to try. Tentatively, he picks up his phone and dials her number. He hasn\u2019t 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The phone rings, but no one answers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He immediately tries again. Maybe she\u2019ll see the missed calls and call him back. He knows that he\u2019s giving himself false hope, but he doesn\u2019t care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No one answers. He tries for the third time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s about to abandon all hope when he hears the sound stop after just two rings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHello?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jules can\u2019t believe his little sister has a boyfriend. She\u2019s growing up so fast, he thinks. When he left, she was barely a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":1317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1321,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1314\/revisions\/1321"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blueandread.asbarcelona.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}