REGULUS
After Evan’s class left, I had a prep period. A whole 45 minutes by myself, alone with my thoughts. I stared at the drawer with my phone in it. It felt like a black hole drawing me towards it until the weight of texting my brother would crush me to death. I stood up and started cleaning the mess Evan’s rascals, as Barty puts it, had made but I couldn’t stop looking back at that damn drawer. Cursing myself, I walked to my desk and pulled out my phone. I had one unread text and it was from an unknown number. Sirius wanted to “meet up”. How would that even work? We go get coffee and chat about how terrible the past six years have been without each other?
I let out a big huff of breath and let my phone fall onto my desk open to the two texts between us. I couldn’t help but let my mind wander to when we were younger and words would spill out of our mouths and tangle in the conversation in front of us. It used to be so easy to talk to Sirius and he just had to throw it all away by not sitting still and following the rules. When he met James, the waterfall of words shifted and fell onto James. He discarded me without a word, without even inviting me to leave with him. I stood up and started pacing behind my desk, cursing at myself under my breath for texting him in the first place. A ping of a new text stopped me dead in my tracks. I stared at my phone and bit the inside of my cheek. It could be from Pandora, I thought. Maybe Evan apologizing for his students being annoying. I moved toward my phone and hesitantly picked it up, tapping on the screen to see who the text was from. Sirius again.
Please? Regulus, I miss you.
I resisted the urge to throw my phone across the room. How dare he miss me? He’s the one that left me in France without a word. If he missed me so much he should’ve gone back. I closed my phone and threw it into my desk drawer again.
After my day was done, I quickly packed my stuff and reluctantly took my phone out of the drawer. I had four more texts from Sirius.
Regulus? Can’t you just respond? 10:47 a.m.
Please Regulus don’t just leave me on delivered like this. 12:53 p.m.
Regulus, I’m really trying here. Just at least say no if you don’t wanna meet up. 2:34 p.m.
Regulus please just respond with anything you’re killing me here. 3:12 p.m.
I felt a twinge of guilt for not responding. Sure, I missed Sirius, he was my brother after all. At one point, I would’ve said he was my best friend. Time has passed, I reminded myself harshly. I shoved my phone into the pocket of my jacket and slung my knapsack over my shoulder.
When I got outside, the harsh bite of the winter wind greeted me. It was one of the colder Fall in New York City but I rather enjoyed it. It meant I could layer my sweaters under my jackets, a way of hiding myself from the world. When we were still in France, we lived in eastern France so winters would get quite cold. It was harsh sometimes, but most of the time it meant I could cover up my body and hide from my parents. It also meant snow forts with Sirius and snow-ball fights even though it would get us in trouble. I shook my head to try and get rid of the thoughts of my brother. My hand fiddled with my phone in my pocket as I made my way to the train station.
Once I was on the train and, thankfully, on my way home, I took out my phone and looked at the messages from Sirius. Without my brain letting them, my thumbs flew over the keyboard and hung in the air above the send buttons.
Sirius, let’s meet up. I think it would be nice.
I furrowed my eyebrows and quickly deleted the message. This time, when I drafted out the text, I thought about it while typing.
Sirius, I was working, that’s why I didn’t respond. We can meet up.
I read the message over and over. Do I owe him an explanation for not responding? My mind ran over the thought. I deleted the explanation so the message now read a measly:
We can meet up.
I pondered deleting the message and not responding for some time again, but the conductor announced my stop and the train doors opened so I hastily pressed send and left the train.
When I got home, I threw my bag down and hung my jacket on the hat rack. Over the past couple of weeks, I had successfully unpacked all of my boxes and repainted (with renter-friendly paint) the walls to be warmer. The walls at home in France were always so bland and colorless, it was nice to have a pop of color in my home. It made it my own. I had plants on the windowsill and books lining every bookshelf and surface available. I wasn’t home for two minutes before a chime on my phone told me Sirius had responded.
Okay, that’s great. Maybe coffee? Actually, there’s a park near my house that maybe you would like.
I sighed at the idea of meeting up with my brother. It was starting to give me a headache just thinking about him. I exited out of our messages on my phone and texted Pandora instead.
Sirius wants to meet up.
While I was waiting for Pandora to respond, I busied myself with making tea for me and coffee for Pandora, expecting that she would eventually show up at my apartment uninvited. I poured the water into the kettle and switched the machine on. While I was waiting for the water to boil, I started pouring some pre-ground coffee beans into a filter cup and onto the drip-pot. It was always calming to me to make coffee or tea. It was a routine that never changed. Within all of the shit that was happening, I found a routine that never changed no matter where I lived.
When my tea was done and the coffee was waiting for Pandora to drink it, I got the chime of Pandora’s response.
I’ll be there in a couple mins.
I smiled at her predictability. She was someone I could always count on to never change, always there to support and guide me no matter what. As promised, in a couple of minutes, I heard Pandora turn her key in my door and let herself in. “Hi,” she said, taking off her shoes, walking over to the coffee pot, and pouring herself a cup with a splash of milk. “Thanks,” she said, taking a sip of her coffee. “So Sirius, huh?” She walked to the other side of the counter and sat on one of the high chairs.
“Yeah. We’ve texted a couple times.” I took a sip of my tea.
“And you didn’t tell me?” she said in mock outrage. “I can’t believe you. You’re supposed to update me on these sorts of things, Regulus.”
“Okay, whatever,” I rolled my eyes. “Here look.” I gave her my phone open to my texts with Sirius. “I don’t know how to respond.” I watched her read through our very short conversation, nodding and ‘hm’ing through the eight messages.
“Well, do you even want to meet up with him?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I bit the inside of my cheek. “I mean part of me does, but the other part of me just hates his guts and never wants to see him again.”
“Yeah, sure,” Pandora nodded. “Tell him that then. Be your moody self and say something like: Let’s get coffee but don’t expect anything from me.”
“That’s so mean though.” I furrowed my eyebrows. “I don’t want to be that mean to him.” I looked down into my tea. I did want to be mean to him, I wanted to unleash my six years worth of anger on him, but he was also my brother. I couldn’t be mean to my Sirius, not to my brother.
“Well, what do you want to say to him then?” Pandora prodded my hand with her finger from across the counter.
“I don’t know,” I said again. “I want to say ‘Let’s get coffee, I miss you too but I also hate your guts and never want to see you again but I still miss you let’s get coffee.’” I sighed and ran my hand through my hair.
“Okay, I’ll draft out a text and then you can hit send okay?” Pandora tilted her head at me and picked up my phone, already starting to type.
“Yeah sure, go right ahead,” I mumbled. After a couple of seconds, Pandora slid my phone across the counter.
Sirius — we can meet up wherever you like, just don’t expect me to be excited to see you.
I furrowed my eyebrows and shook my head. “But I think I would be excited to see him.” I looked at Pandora, expecting her to look at me with disbelief but she just looked worried. “He’s still my brother, Pandora.”
“I know, I know,” she took a sip of her coffee before continuing. “But I’ve seen how much he’s hurt you. I’m just worried that if things go back to normal between you two, he’ll break your heart again.”
“We’re not going back to normal,” I said, suddenly getting defensive over this whole situation. “We’re just meeting up to talk.” I picked up my phone and typed out a message and quickly pressed send before Pandora could tell me not to.
Let’s go to the park, it sounds nice.