Coming Home

I arrived a few minutes early and entered the coffee shop. I hadn't even started to look around yet when I heard the scraping noise of a chair being pushed aside quickly, followed by the sound of the said chair falling over. I turned towards the source. I don't know what I expected to see but the nervous wreck I spotted was not it. I took a deep breath and walked over to her.

"Hi, Veronica."

"Hi, William."

I could see how torn she was between jumping my bones and keeping a respectful distance. I decided against physical contact, not even shaking her hand.

"Have you been waiting for long?"

"To be honest, I've been here for over an hour. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be late."

I smiled in an attempt to reduce her nervousness.

"Well, you succeeded. You are here," I tried a joke, loosely pointing at her with my hands.

"What would you like to drink? I'll get it."

I asked for a regular black coffee. Since my early student days, the smell of black coffee had a calming effect on me. While Veronica rushed to get my order, I picked up the chair she had toppled and sat down on the other side of the table. I was taken aback by how right and natural it had felt to speak these few words to her. When she had come by my house I had been taken by surprise and as a consequence, I had pulled my defences up. But today, while I was at least as nervous as Veronica looked, I had known I would see her and had even forced myself to remain open to everything.

Veronica came back, placed my coffee in front of me and sat down on her chair. An awkward silence settled over us and I could feel our spirits declining. This meeting was on a steady course to crash and burn even before it even started.

"How are you?"

Stupid question but it was something, a start from which a discussion could grow.

"Horrible. I didn't sleep at all last night because I kept thinking about what I wanted to say to you and worrying about what you would tell me."

"And what have you come up with?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"Nothing. Everything. But in the end, it all boils down to two things. I'm sorry. I was wrong breaking up with you. I did it for the wrong reasons. And I did the wrong thing when I tried to correct my mistakes. Today, I know that. I'll never again be able to understand what went through my head when I hooked up with Brian. But maybe, it doesn't matter what was then. It doesn't even matter that I've regretted those decisions every single day since then. What matters is that I'm truly sorry that I hurt you. What matters, at least to me, is that I still love you and that I miss you."

She fell quiet and looked at me like a mouse would look at a snake. I realised that she would do everything I demanded. She'd probably agree to whichever porn fantasy I wanted to live out. But that wasn't what I wanted. I understood that now that I was here and saw her, really saw her, with a prepared mind.

I wanted her back. The confident woman she used to be. My soulmate. It was as simple as that. Of course, she would have changed over the past years and that was ok. A different taste of music, different interests, different whatever. But I didn't want a timid, fearful woman who wouldn't speak up for herself. How could I get that across?

"As you know, I have a teenager at home that I'm responsible for. I don't have time to waste."

Her face fell and she was about to burst out crying. That was about the dumbest thing I've ever said to anyone on any occasion and I've said many stupid things over the years. I needed to do something. Fast.

"Veronica. I miss you too. Despite everything. That's why I'm here."

The change in her face when my words registered with her was amazing.

"I should have started with that, shouldn't I?" I tried to make a joke. "I miss you too but things have changed in the last six years. We have changed in that time. Neither you nor I are the persons we used to be. As you know, I'm the guardian of my sister and everything else ranks lower than this fact. Six years ago, you hurt me really bad I and it hasn't stopped hurting to this day. I miss you but I also have doubts because I find it difficult to trust you. I've forgiven what happened six years ago but I haven't forgotten."

She looked at me, like a criminal might look at the executioner, bowed body, her hands wringing in front of her, tears threatening to fall out of her eyes at any moment.

"Because of that and even more important because of Carla, I think we need to take it slow. One step at a time. Let's get to know each other again before we do something rash that we might regret later. Let's find out slowly whether we're both just chasing a memory or whether we're still as good together as we were."

Tears were flowing down her face now but they weren't tears of despair, even I could see that. They were tears of hope.

"Can I please, please take you in my arms, William? Please! If I don't get to hold you I'll start bawling and everybody will think you're the bad guy instead of the wonderful man you really are."

I got out of the chair and spread my arms to welcome Veronica in my embrace. She still cried but she used my chest as a damper so barely anyone around us heard us. It took some time for Veronica to recover. When she had calmed enough to stop crying she sat down on the chair next to mine instead of the other side of the table and held my left hand in both of hers.

"I don't deserve it but you've made me so happy I don't care. What you're offering is so much more than I dared to hope for. I love you, William."

"There are two things you have to promise."

"Whatever it takes, my love."

The corner of my mouth twitched at hearing that.

"That's the first thing. 'Whatever it takes' has to end. I don't want a devoted slave girl submitting to my every whim by my side. I want the twenty-four-year-old version of the fun and confident seventeen-year-old girl I fell in love with six years ago. I need a partner, not another ward."

She looked at me, her eyes still puffy from crying, "And what's the other?"

"No more apologising for the past. You've apologised and I've forgiven. It won't do any good if we keep reminding ourselves of that. If we get caught in the past we'll never be able to move into the future."

I saw a spark of mischief appear in Veronica's mesmerising, turquoise eyes. I took a breath to beat her to the punch but I failed.

"Whatever it takes," she replied, trying to keep a straight face.

"That's not funny."

"Yes, it was."

"No, it wasn't," I insisted but my mouth was already starting to betray me.

"Yes, it was."

I gave in, it was a good and well-delivered pun, after all, and grinned.

"Ok. It was. But just a little bit."

She lifted my hand to her lips and gave it a soft kiss.

"Thank you, William. You're a better person than I deserve."

"Thank you for not giving up. I enjoyed being courted."

"Good. Because I'm not done with it yet."

We kept chatting and catching up for a little longer. I learned that she had just finished her degree in Business Administration and was about to start her first job in the Human Resources department of the local affiliate of a language school. She told me about her time in college, including her dating activity. She hadn't been a nun and I hadn't expected that but what she told me about was well within normal behaviour patterns, maybe even a bit on the plain side. I found myself wondering whether she gave me a sugar-coated version and realised that with all the love I felt for her, I was right to take a slow approach. Somewhere in my mind, she still was the cheating bitch I had thought her to be for the last six years.

But I wanted to believe her. Believed that she had been a stupid teenager who was driven by hormones instead of logic. At least the rational part of me believed her. The emotional part, the part that was in an uproar right now, still had doubts.

Her reaction to my story was predictable. She already knew that my parents had been killed in a road accident but she hadn't known that they were killed by a brake malfunction. As it had turned out, my Dad had been a bit late for the last annual maintenance check and had ignored a warning light from the cars' internal control system for a while. Because of that, there had only been massively reduced insurance compensations. This had left my sister and me with only the college funds, which I hadn't touched to this day, the savings account, a new car and a small payment from the life insurance. In the two years since, I had barely been able to make ends meet and had had to use the savings account for some urgent repairs on the house and an occasional, extraordinary expenditure, usually somehow connected with Carla. Without the orphan's allowance my sister received from Social Services, we would have had to sell the house. I still wasn't sure if I would be able to keep it until she finished High School.

When six o'clock approached, we parted with the promise to talk again later in the evening. I came home just in time to stop my sister from burning down the house trying to prepare something to eat with the help of a YouTube-tutorial. Instead, she started the expected interrogation. I replied to some of her questions but when she started asking the questions I felt girls her age shouldn't ask their Brodad, I called a halt.

As it was a Saturday, I let her stay up a little longer than normal and take over the TV. That left me with nothing to do because it almost hurt physically to watch the gut-wrenching crap she was into. I grabbed my phone and went to the back porch but instead of gaming or browsing, I reflected on what had happened in the coffee shop today.

I was a little surprised that I still thought that most, if not all, I had said was right. We should take it slow. Let the trust build again before jumping into bed together. Not that I didn't want to, she was a good-looking woman, standing only a few centimetres shorter than I did. She wasn't what most men would call a beauty but many would turn their heads to get a quick look at her from behind when she walked past. But her looks didn't matter. What mattered was how good, how right it had felt to be sitting at the same table with her, to be talking to her, to hold hands with her.

But could I believe her? I certainly wanted to but just because my brain said yes, didn't mean that my heart followed suit. What she had told me made sense. It fitted with what her mother had told me. What it didn't fit in with was the picture my mind had created and held onto for the last six years and a half years.

But trust wasn't the only thing that bugged me. Maybe even worse than the missing trust was that she seemed so intent on pleasing me. Not in a romantic, loving way but in a desperate and insecure way. Like the mousy girl that gets to talk to the star of the sports team. That was not the Veronica I remembered, the Veronica I had loved, the Veronica that I still wanted to love.

It wouldn't do any good to brood over it endlessly. I picked up my phone, scrolled to her contact and had my finger hovering over her number when she beat me to it.

"Hi, Veronica. I was just about to call you."

"Hi, Love. I couldn't wait any longer. My anxiety keeps bringing up all kinds of things that could go wrong and I needed to hear your voice to calm me."

Despite having spoken for almost three hours in the afternoon we again talked for almost two hours and the only reason we stopped was that my battery went dead. I didn't even have the time to say goodnight, it happened so suddenly. I took my phone inside to charge it, only to find out that my sister had ruthlessly exploited my distraction. Carla was watching an action-thriller I wouldn't have let her watch if I had been more attentive.

But having now watched most of the movie, I decided to let her finish it and sat down next to her. Carla soon snuggled up to me to use me as a moral support during the intense final battle between the good and the bad guys. When the movie was over, I discussed it with her to help her avoid bad dreams and make sure she realised the differences between a movie and reality.

When I sent her upstairs to go to bed, she hesitated for a moment. I could feel that she still had something on her mind.

"Will Veronica become my Sismom?"

I smiled openly at this spontaneous word creation but it fit in nicely with Brodad.

"It's way too early to tell, Darling."

"Will you marry her?"

"I don't know. We just started seeing each other again today. It might take years before we come to a conclusion about our future."

Carla fell quiet. I understood that the thing she really wanted to know was still unsaid.

"What would happen to me if you married her?"

There it was. The elephant in the room. And while it was a big one I could easily get rid of it. I slid off the couch and knelt down in front of my sister. I took both her hands in mine and pulled them to my mouth to gently kiss her fingers and looked her deep in the eyes.

"Nothing will ever be more important to me than you, never would I prefer her or anybody else to you. If Veronica and I married before you want to move out we would live together as one family. Do you understand that?"

"And if you have children?"

"Then they will take a place next to you. Our parents didn't stop loving me or caring for me when you came along and neither would I stop loving you. You're my baby sister, you'll always be my baby sister, I will always love you and I'll look after you as long as you let me."

She pulled her hands out of mine, wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her face in my neck.

"I love you too, Billy."

After giving her a few moments to express her feelings, I grabbed her around her chest and rose, pulling her up with me.

"But now it's time to hit the hay. It's way past your bedtime, young lady."

I accompanied her up the stairs and we were about half-way up when somebody started rapping at the kitchen door.

"William?! Are you here?!"

I ordered Carla to continue upstairs and went to check who that was. Veronica was standing on the patio, holding her hands to the glass door, trying to shield off the reflections and see if anybody inside was still up.

"Oh, thank goodness."

I opened the door.

"What's wrong?"

She was almost hysterical and threw herself around my neck.

"The line suddenly went dead and I couldn't reach you anymore and I was worried that something had happened to you and I didn't have the opportunity to tell you I love you and I started worrying that I had said something to drive you away and I only just got you back and ..."

"Shhh. Calm down. Everything is fine. My battery went flat and then my sister had some things she needed to get off her chest so I haven't had the opportunity to turn the phone back on yet. I'm sorry for stressing you."

I sat her on a chair at the kitchen table and prepared a cup of hot lime blossom tea for her. Once she had started to relax and sipping her tea, I went upstairs to check on my sister who was still awake and I had to assure her that Veronica would be ok.

I returned downstairs to Veronica who had calmed down some more while I had been upstairs but she was still too upset to drive home safely so we continued our chat from the telephone call. The next time we checked the time it was long past midnight. She yawned loudly.

"It's time to go home, I guess. I'm sorry for being such a wreck."

"If you want to, you can stay here for the night instead of driving in that state you're in. I'd be worried you have an accident."

Her head snapped around and her eyes made promises I didn't want to hear. Yet.

"Sleep over. Nothing else. My old room still has a bed in it. You can use it if you want to."

"Thank you. I think I'll take you up on that offer. I've never liked driving by night. I'll just send my parents a quick text. Oh, that reminds me. Would you mind deleting all my texts and messages without checking them? You might get the impression I'm some kind of psycho."

"Now you've made me curious. Let me turn on my phone and listen to them," I replied with all the sincerity I could muster while I started to walk towards the living room.

"No. Please. Don't. William, please..."

She had grabbed my hand and turned me around. When she saw the grin on my face, she changed the tune, playfully slapping my arm.

"You schmuck! You're teasing me! That's so mean!"

Her complaint was moderated by the embrace she gave me simultaneously. I pointed to my phone and gave her the four-digit-passcode for it.

"Why don't you delete your messages while I clean up the kitchen?"

I had just put the empty cups in the dishwasher and wiped the table when she returned with my phone in her hands.

"They are not deleted. In the afternoon, you said you need to learn to trust me again. Deleting messages would not help. If you want to read and hear them, then do it."

"No, I don't want to read them if you'd feel embarrassed. There's a difference between building trust and humiliation. Go ahead. Please delete them."

I was rewarded with a strong hug. After she had cleaned the phone from all traces of her anxiety attack we went upstairs.

"If you want to take a shower, you can find a fresh towel in the cupboard. I'll bring you a T-shirt to use as pyjamas."

"You wouldn't let me sleep in your bed with you? No sex! Just cuddling."

"I don't think that's a good idea. I love you, Veronica. I really do. But I'm afraid if we rush things we'll regret it. We both aren't the persons we used to be. We need to find out if we still fit together."

The truth was that I felt that she was way too submissive but I also got the impression that it wasn't her real persona. I thought that I could see the real her behind this mask. I hoped that it was just the situation that made her so insecure. If we slept together too early it could eradicate her insecurity but there were also several risks involved. The one that she would later feel I had exploited her was only the most obvious. We needed to rebuild our relationship slowly. I needed to learn to trust her again and she needed to come out of her shell. Becoming intimate would be one step along the way but the relationship had to come first.

I hugged her strongly before I quickly kissed her lips, chaste without getting our tongues involved, and wished her a good night. She whimpered desperately and tried to catch my lips by following them but I gently stopped her.

"When the time is right."

It took me a long time to fall asleep that night.

+

I woke late around ten on Sunday. The high riding emotions of the previous day seemed to have taken its toll. Walking downstairs, I heard voices from the kitchen. Curious what they would be talking about, I stopped before they could see me and listened in.

"I don't know, Carla. I really don't. I did some really stupid things when we were in High School and I hurt your brother badly. I don't know if we can get together again."

"But you love each other, don't you?"

"Yes, we do. Or at least, I do. But sometimes, love is not enough."

That was scarily close to what I had thought a few weeks ago. I could literally hear my little sister thinking.

"Did you cheat on him?"

I held my breath. That was one of the big questions I needed an answer to.

"No, Darling. I didn't. I know he probably thinks I did and I can even see why he thinks so but no, I didn't. What I did was even worse. After I hurt him by breaking up and lying about the reason, I hurt him even more by playing some stupid games to make him jealous and come fighting for me. I never considered that I could push him away even further. You must promise something to me."

"What?"

"Never play those stupid mind games girls like to play with their boyfriends. Don't expect him to act a certain way just because they do it in all those stupid romance movies. If you like him, tell him. Don't wait for him to find out. Don't try to get him to notice you. Don't expect him to just know what you're thinking or feeling. If you make a mistake apologise take the responsibility and apologise without considering possible consequences. Take the lead."