Aunt Sayra knocks at the door of my room to let me know there's a call for me.

I glance at the clock. A little past 5pm, which is an odd time for Edgar to call me. He's very sincere about his part-time job, and never slacks off in any way there. I begin to worry that something bad has happened to him. Exchanging a nervous glance with July, who is sitting right beside me, I get off the bed and walk over to the telephone near the dining table.

I pick up the receiver. "Hey, Edgar? What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

"It's me," replies an unfamiliar voice from the other side.

"Huh?"

"It's me, Dale."

"Huh?"

"It's me, Dale."

I think I'm hearing it wrong. "Who?"

"Dale."

"Wha- how- you- what? How did you-"

"Your friend gave it to me."

"Oh . . ." That bastard! I'm gonna kill him!

And yet, when the initial shock passes, I find my heart rate starting to pace up. Dale called me. I don't care for whatever reason, but he went through the trouble of getting my number just to contact me. I hold the receiver with both hands and press it tighter to my ear, as if otherwise the connection will cut down. My brother called me. For some reason, that makes me awfully happy. I thought no one from my blood family cares that I went away. But if he called me, it must mean he cares.

But then, another thought strikes me. What if he called me for some other reason? Did something happen to mom? Maybe dad? Maybe Edgar?

Quickly, I ask, "W-why are you- why did you call me? Is everything okay?"

"Yes."

"Oh." Now what? What am I supposed to say? I begin to restlessly tap my foot on the ground.

"Ask him how he is, for Galium's sake!" I hear a distant voice say from the other side. I recognize it to be brother Aster's. Ah, now I get it. He must have forced Dale to call me. I feel a mild disappointment settle over me.

"How are you?" Dale quickly asks.

"Yeah . . . I'm okay. How are you?"

"Yeah." He doesn't elaborate further. Does he realize that doesn't answer my question? Maybe he is nervous. The thought makes me smile. Why would anyone be so nervous talking to their own brother on the phone? But I know one thing. While it is the result of the years of distance between us born from neglect, this nervousness also is a sign that he is trying, trying to get rid of this distance, trying to be the brother he couldn't be before.

So I decide to try too. Just as an awkward silence was starting to take form, I ask, "How is mom and dad?"

"They're okay. Mr. Lockwood came back. A day after you left."

"Oh, that's good."

He doesn't reply. I wonder if his silence hints he doesn't think it's good. Maybe this is the one thing the two of us will never agree on.

Another awkward silence. Again, I hear brother Aster say from the back, "Ask him when he's coming back! You forgot all the questions right after he picked up the phone!"

"When are you coming back?" A pause. "Are you coming back?"

"Yeah, I am." I lean against the chair. "It's not like I have anywhere else to go . . . but anyways, I will come back in-" Suddenly, my words get stuck. I bite my lip, my stomach beginning to churn from the unwelcomed reminder. I stare wide-eyed at the wall in front of me as I desperately try to stop my rushing mind from calculating the remaining days. No no no no . . . how many days till he . . .? No-

"Cedar."

I snap out. "Huh?" I feel my knee burning. When I look at it, I see five red holes all over. I've been digging my finger into it without even realizing. Quickly, I pull the hem of my half-pants down to cover it.

"When are you coming back?" Dale repeats.

"Oh, in-" I clear my throat, "in a few days . . ."

"Oh."

Yet another silence. I push the thought further to the back of my mind. I'm not ready for that realization yet.

I hear a loud sigh from the other end, then some shuffling. Then brother Aster speaks on the receiver. "Little Cedar, hello! You see,  Dale-dale has a loooot to tell you, but he's a biiiiit shy. So have patience, okay? Don't hang up until he tells you everything!" More shuffling, and then I hear him say, "I'm gonna leave you to it, Dale-dale. Please talk to him properly, okay okay?"

I hear the sound of a door closing. I wonder where they are.

Dale says, "Hello?"

"Yeah, I'm here."

He clears his throat. "I, uh . . ." Another cough. "I wanted to tell you . . ."

I can't help but think how this sounds like a love confession over the telephone. But I wait patiently for him to complete.

Finally, he says, "You know, I said some . . . really bad things to them."

"Who? Mom and dad?"

"Yeah."

"What did you say?"

"Bad things," he repeats. "I got mad. Extremely mad. At first, I thought they deserve to hear those. And maybe they do. But, I don't know . . . I don't feel good about it."

"I see." I think I know what kind of bad things he must have told them. I realized how Dale has reached his breaking point the day when he first spoke up for me against mom in the dinner table. And I have no doubt that it was brother Aster who made him realize just how wrongly he had been treated his whole life. Now I can hardly blame him for being like this towards our parents. I ask him, "Do you want to apologize?"

"I don't know."

"I know how you feel . . . I think I would've felt the same way." I think a little more, then say, But I think that, you shouldn't focus on what's right and what's wrong, what they deserve and what they don't. If apologizing will give you mental peace, then do it."

"I think neither will give me mental peace."

I nod. "Valid." I let out a sigh. I wish I could help him somehow, but I can't think of a solution, because I can see the situation from both sides.

"I'm going to come out to them," he suddenly says.

"Huh?" I sit straight.

"I'm going to come out to them."

"Really? Are you sure? Like, are you ready?"

"Yes. There was a time when I cared about their opinion about me. But now I don't."

"Oh. What does brother Aster think about this?"

"He said he's fine either way."

"Okay. If you wish. But if they're against it . . . you know- they're old."

"I know." He doesn't say anything for a while. Just as I'm about to say something, he speaks up again. "But I want to give them this one last chance. They haven't been the best parents for you and me. But something like this . . . it's the least they can do. It's the least they should do. I have become everything they have ever wanted me to become. Is it wrong for me to want this much?"

Hearing him speak like that, an inexplicable feeling of sadness settles over me. It deepens when I realize that my brother is not the only one in this world who feels this way, craving for the bare minimum instead of having the adequate expectations. What is the point of sharing the same blood if we have to "be a certain way" to be loved?

"No," I softly say, "no, Dale, it's not wrong." I take a deep breath. "But, regardless of what they say or think about it, I just want to say that- that no matter what they think, I will still support you."

"I know." His voice sounds slightly happier as he says this. It brings a smile to my face.

"Well then, let me know how it goes."

"Okay. Another thing."

"Hmm?"

-----------------------

"Dale wants to move out?" July asks, setting Sputnik Sweetheart beside him on the bed.

I nod as I take a sip from the cup of tea Aris has prepared. Well technically, all he did was throw the tea leaves and boil the milk, and Aunt Sayra did the rest. But he firmly promised me that one day he will make me a cup of tea entirely by his own hands.

"When?" July pokes the cup, as if checking whether he can feel the temperature of it.

"He said as soon as he gets a job. He will probably get one very soon. And if he gets a job, he will undoubtedly get a good one too. With his grades and everything. He said he is already looking for an apartment."

"In this city?"

I nod. "He wants to move in with brother Aster, actually. But he is too scared to make the proposal to him. Brother Aster has a good relationship with his family—he has an old mother and a few siblings, I think?—so Dale thinks that he won't agree to live separately from them."

"Hmm. That's a valid concern."

"You know what else he said?"

"What?"

I finish the rest of the tea and put the cup on the bedside table. "That he's looking for a two-bedroom apartment. One will be for him and Aster, given that Aster moves in, otherwise it will be for him only. And the other, well, he's keeping it for me. In case I want to move out."

July raises his eyebrows. "Ooh, that's thoughtful of him."

"It is. But," I sigh, "it's also putting me in a difficult spot, you know? Like if brother Aster refuses to move in in the end, and I don't either, then Dale will stay all by himself . . . and I don't want that. He's been by himself his whole life. He doesn't deserve to anymore. I know he will do fine by himself, but I just think that- that he should feel the happiness of always having someone beside him."

"Hmm . . . but to be honest, isn't that something that Aster should think about? If they're planning to stay in a long-term relationship, as his partner, Aster should be the one worried about that."

"Yeah but, he also can't be blamed if he chooses to be with his family, you know. Not everyone has a dysfunctional one like mine."

July slowly nods.

"You know . . ."

"Yeah?"

"I think Dale is eventually going to cut ties with our parents."

"You think so?"

I nod. "I think that's what he's implying by saying he's going to move out. I mean, that's his decision and I don't think I have the heart to force him to stay, not after everything he's been deprived of, but . . . I'm worried that it will lead to ugly situations where I will fall between them. Because I will be the only thing connecting our parents and him, you know what I mean?"

July thinks something for a while, while I worry about how things will only get more and more complicated in our family as time passes. Will it be better for Dale to move out and live his own life? It's certainly justified. And maybe it will make him happier. But it also means that our family will probably never have another chance of piecing back together. We will become a broken family.

The Lockwoods. A pathetic, broken family born and raised from neglect. Just the thought makes me feel a stab at my heart.

"What about you?" July asks.

"Hmm?"

"What do you want? Do you want to move out and cut contact with them? Or do you want to stay with them and leave the whole situation unchanged, maybe go through many more complications?"

That is exactly what I was thinking about right after I ended my conversation with Dale. For a long time, I sat there beside the telephone, and looked back at my whole life until now, at the ways my parents have treated me or didn't treat me, at the ways I have treated them or didn't treat them. I looked back and tried to see what went so terribly wrong. I realized that it was probably the biggest circle in my field of cirlces—the confusion about what I truly want the word "family" to mean for me in my life.

Rubbing my forehead with my thumb and index finger, I tell July, "I honestly don't know what I want."

He leans back on his palms, eyes firmly fixed on me.

I take a deep breath. "I also don't know what I should. One is moral, the other feels fair. I don't know." I hug my knees to my chest. "But I thought a lot about it. And I think that somewhere in me, I get the feeling that if I do leave, if I do end everything with them, then a part of me will regret it at some point. Maybe not now, maybe when I'm much older. Maybe when they die, I will have this immense regret, and I won't be able to forgive myself for not giving them another chance."

"So you think they deserve another chance."

I've thought about that too. "I mean, did I ever give them a proper chance? Did I ever sit down and like, talk to them, let them know how I feel and why I feel that way? I know my mother is not a stone-hearted woman who cares about nothing but my grades. In the past month, I have seen small proofs of that. A part of me feels like, maybe, if maybe I just- I don't know, one day I just broke down in front of them and told them how much in pain I am because- because of the way they treat me, maybe something would be different at least. Maybe I would've seen them trying, making an attempt to work themselves out.

"But I never did that. I accepted the way things are instead of trying to fix it. No, it's not like I didn't try. I just tried the wrong way. I tried to use my grades for getting love in exchange, but that's not how it works, does it? If my mother loved me only for getting good grades, then I would be the most pathetic human being in the world. It's much better to not be loved than that."

"That's true." July rubs the back of his neck. "I, too, at some point of my life realized that."

"Right. And you know, a relationship cannot work out with an effort from a single side. Both sides need to actively participate. And for that to happen, at least one side has to take the initiative, right?"

"Right."

"And I know that, they should be the one to take that initiative. They were the one who ruined things without letting them even, you know, take a form. They were the ones projecting their own childhood traumas into their kids. But if they can't do that, if they can't take the initiative, does that mean I don't have a responsibility, as the other side of the relationship? Does that mean that, if I  take the initiative instead, I will be dropping down to a lower level of self-esteem or something like that?"

He rubs his chin in thought. "In my opinion, if you consider ego in every . . . um, equation of say, conflicts in a relationship, then things do get much more difficult."

"Exactly. That's also the way I see it. And I don't think that there is a right or wrong way to see it. It's what my own principles tell me. It's what my manner of thinking tells me. And I think that, I should at least make this one last effort. I should at least give them this one last proper chance. Which Dale isn't."

He shakes his head. "Dale is also giving them this chance. Except he isn't doing it to fix things, but to bring things to a closure, you know what I mean?"

I nod, seeing his point.

"Now that's his perspective of things, this is yours. And as you said, there is no right and wrong way to see it. It depends on your principles, at the end of the day. But I must admit, the road you want to take is a much difficult one. If they don't take this chance . . . you will feel extremely hurt, Cedar."

I know he is right. I can imagine the amount of dread that will settle over me if nothing works out in the end. I can imagine how much it might damage me as a person, and how it might effect my relationships in the future no matter how careful I am. Shaking my head, I say, "But I'll be in peace knowing that at least I tried till the end. At least I'll have nothing to blame myself for, and nothing to regret."

He nods several times, lips pressed together as he stares out the window.

"What do you think about this, July? I want to hear your opinion too."

"No." He shakes his head. "This is not my place to give an opinion. It's your family, and so the decision is all yours. I'll give you the opinion that will hurt you the least, but that doesn't mean it will be what you want for yourself."

"Hmm . . . but you've been in a similar situation, although much, much worse."

He chuckles. "Comparing your family with mine is a sin, Cedar. There is a huge, huge difference. And you know where the difference is? Love. There was no love whatsoever between any two people among the four in my family. But there is love in yours, just not the healthy expression of it. Your family doesn't know how to express love for each other in a healthy way  But that doesn't mean it can't be treated."

I let out an exhale and lie down on my pillow, eyes on the ceiling. "I really hope so."

"But hey, you know what we can learn from this conversation?"

"What?" I put my hand under my head.

"In the beginning you said, I don't know what I want. But as you talked, it all clicked together, and now you finally have a decision, don't you?"

"Ah, you're right." I grin. "That's interesting."

"Uh huh. This just shows that sometimes just talking to someone else about it is the best way to sort everything out. Even if you can't find a clear solution, you'll still get somewhere, which you won't if you just keep it to yourself, you know?"

"Mhm, mhm."

"So what I'm saying is, when I'm gone-"

"July."

"No, listen to me, sweetheart. What I want you to keep in mind is that, as long as you're surrounding yourself with authentic people in your life, they won't feel burdened if you share your problems with them. In fact! They will feel comfortable sharing their problems with you. As you said before, a relationship requires effort from both sides, and one side has to take the initiative. If you take that initiative first, things might work out much easily, don't you think?"

"Hmmm, you're right." I turn to my side, propping my head up on my elbow. He's sitting beside the window, looking at me from against the violet backdrop of the curtains. His when I'm gone echoes in my mind, and I subconsciously pull down the hem of my pants again.

His gaze flicks to the source of movement. He opens his mouth to say something.

But I interrupt quickly. "Say, do you think that in an alternate universe, you are my father?"

He gives me a weird look. "Um, that's too much Sweet Home Alabama for me."

A bunch of cackles leave my mouth and I kick his stomach. "How do you even come up with these?!"

"I should be asking you that!" He covers his chest. "And ouch, did you just kick my nipples?"

"Stop." I laugh more, tears coming out of my eyes. "Just stop it, dad."

"Ewww, not me getting fatherzoned. After everything we've been through!"

This time, he bursts into a fit of chuckles, while I roll on the bed, trying to keep my own voice down in case the Emmens hear it. The back of my head begins to ache.

Thoughts of the end, of the future, of all the struggles waiting for me—they disintegrate. If only temporarily. When I'm happy, when I'm laughing, and when he's happy and he's laughing with me too, everything else becomes much less important.

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hello my lovely readers :)

I have thought a lot about how both Cedar and Dale will navigate their relationship with their parents, what will make sense based on their personalities and mindsets. And I think that this is the most fitting one. Dale no longer has any interest of changing anything, so he will leave the negativity behind and find his own happiness. But Cedar, who is more forgiving and understanding, wants to give this one more chance. However, I would say there's way more layers to this type of psychology than what it seems on the surface, which I want the readers to think about by themselves. I'm curious to know what your opinion is.

Anyways, this is the scene from the first book where Dale called Cedar for the first time, just for comparison XD

Thanks a lot for reading!! Take care <3

—sweet home alabama, Poma