Rumored Nights

Alice didn’t stay at Skye’s that night.

With the breakout of tears and revelations she couldn’t find it in herself to spend the rest of the night with people, however amazingly caring they were.

She walked back home that evening, trying to soak in the rare silence to think, something that came easily for her walking along deserted streets.

Under streetlights she scuffed her way, the silence she so relished in broken by the shrill ring of her cell phone.

The almost always forgotten piece of metal found its way to her ear.

"Hello?"

The voice that replied on the other end gave her the first true lighter than air feeling she'd felt in a long time.

"Well hello to you too little sister."

Her brother's voice was one she hadn't heard in so long, the effect he had on her was like an eraser of bad things.

Ryan brought out everything good, surely getting the genes Alice missed out on.

"Ryan! It's been a long time... how's college?"

Those were the words that became the key to opening the door, because that was the only way to explain the flow of words that suddenly poured from the speaker.

Despite whatever pain lingered from earlier, hearing her brother talk endlessly about how wonderful college was going, how much he loved his psychology class, and how wonderful the freedom was made Alice forget her own problems.

"Ally? You still there?"

She must've zoned out to be suddenly surpised to hear her brother's voice.

"Yeah, yeah, sorry, I'm walking home... got distracted."

If frowns could be heard on the phone Ryan's would've taken Alice's hearing out with it.

"Why are you out so late? I hope Bill didn't take you somewhere shady."

He didn't.

Those words came thickly through Alice's lips, though despite Ryan's uncanny way of knowing when things were wrong, he was still a guy and as such oblivious.

"Well then put him on, I've been meaning to ask him something."

If the words spoken earlier had bothered her, the question just now stirred at the settled emotions from earlier.

"He's not here."

The intuition that evaded Ryan earlier kicked in with her reply.

It was obvious by her words that there was something going on.

In the ten years they had all known each other Ryan couldn't think of one Friday night his sister and William hadn't spent together.

In fact, there were few days during the week they were apart.

There was a sad edge to Alice's voice that was now apparent to Ryan, and it didn't take him long to put the puzzle pieces together of what was going on.

There had been times before when they had the occasional fight, an argument now and then, but this was clearly different.

"Alice, is everything alright?" Ryan asked, already knowing her answer.

"Yeah, everything's fine."

The threatening guilt disappeared as Alice answered him, knowing that if Ryan really knew how she felt it would only bring him unneccessarily down.

"Okay... well listen kid, I gotta go. Keep your nose clean, and take care of mom." Ryan murmured with both authority and care in the way only a brother could.

That was how all their conversations had gone, Ryan's instinct to protect their mother coming first, and always falling short with Frank and Hailey.

It went unsaid that he held the usual disdain for the replacement father figuire in his life, and a neutrality for his step sister he only saw on the standard holidays.

"Hey, and watch out for Caroline for me okay?" He added as Alice was about to hang up.

That caught her attention, a thought rarely spoken by them as anyone needing to take care of Caroline.

Alice murmured a quick goodbye while her mind wandered in thought and her body wandered in distance.

Their sister had never needed anyone to take care of her, not even Ryan from boyfriend's or their mother from heartache.

Alice reached her house by this time, thankful Skye lived so close as she walked inside with only a cold nose and weary feet.

In the dark living room the light from the television still on made the room glow and casting light upon her mother's sleeping form.

Alice took a blanket from off the chair and tucked it around her mother, memories of a younger her doing the same thing so many years ago.

Leaving the living room Alice made her way up the stairs, heading toward her room when her and Ryan's conversation earlier came back to her.

With a changed course she tiptoed to her sister's room and knocked softly on the panelled wood with a strip of light spilling out from around it's edges.

"Who's there?" A muffled voice, though distinctly scared, asked in her sister's voice.

"Caroline? It's me, Alice."

Alice didn't wait for her sister to reply after countless years of running through her door, only now she treaded with caution, her actions slowed by the memory of her sister's scared voice.

"Is everything alright?"

Caroline glanced up from where she lay sprawled across the carpeted floor.

Her sisters book was overturned on her chest, caught between pages of a whole other world Alice had just interrupted.

"Yeah, why wouldn't it be?" Caroline asked, showing off a cheeky smile to prove her statement true.

Alice shrugged, joining her sister on the floor.

"I was talking to Ryan earlier and he told me to watch out for you, but you've never really needed it, and I thought he would've learned that when Brad Kelly cheated on you and you broke his nose."

Caroline laughed, sounding carefree in the wake of what must've been a flashback.

"And then I started wondering why he'd say that, and figured he must've had a reason, so here I am asking you."

Tension isn't tangible; it can't be held, it can't be manipulated, but somehow Alice felt it fill the room like carbon monoxide; silent but deadly.

"He's a big brother, can't you just assume he worries regardless?" Caroline asked.

The reason in her voice was believable and honest and Alice should've easily accepted it... but she couldn't.

Perhaps it was the fact she'd known her sister her whole life that she couldn't accept such a fact, but it was for that same reason she pretended she did.

"Sounds reasonable I guess."

It was then a sound broke through the resounding silence that both of them jumped, hearing the front door close not so quietly downstairs.

"Luke's back early." Alice murmured, a little startled she'd made the revelation.

Caroline tensed up next to Alice, but neither of them said anything to call it into question, bringing to light the old phrase ignorance is bliss.

Sitting on the floor they both thought on different planes about different things until one of them spoke up and brought them down to the now.

"Hey Alice?"

She turned to her sister's almost pleading eyes.

"Can you stay with me tonight? For old times sake."

And so Alice, for the first time in a long time crawled into her sister's bed, where she found the same comfort most would compare to their parent's bed, and fell into a blissfully dreamless sleep.