Cry Until You Bleed

55- Coming Home

*Early update because I'm going to post the epilogue tomorrow. I start my summer job on Wednesday and I don't want to forget to post the epilogue on time so yeah*

"Hi, Niles. It's Ana again. I know that we haven't talked in a few months but I just wanted to let you know that I've gotten out of Bernard's. Which, now that I think about it, Sophie might have already told you. Well, anyway, I'm home in California now and I'm calling you from my cell phone so if you ever want to talk to me again, you have my number. I'm not going to keep calling you or anything, I just thought that you'd like to know that I'm gone now. Oh, and Merry Christmas."

I hang up my cell phone and push it into my jeans pocket before leaving my bedroom and I go downstairs to the living room where Penn and Sienna are sitting on the couch watching TV.

"Already done unpacking?" Penn wonders.

"I had one bag of things, it literally took me like, two seconds to unpack," I remind him, flicking my new bangs out of my face. Once I was released from Bernard's earlier this morning, Sophie had taken me to a salon so that I could get a haircut and I had decided to get shorter bangs that dangle on the sides of my face when my hair is in a high pony tail like it is now. And then after the salon she took me to the airport and now I'm back home.

"Right, right. Anyway, are you ready for dinner?" He asks me with his arm around Sienna as he turns off the TV and then they both stand up from the couch so that we can leave.

I nod. "Yeah, where's Mom and Dad?"

"We're right here," My dad pipes, coming into the room from the kitchen with my mom following him. "Are we all ready to go?"

We all nod in agreement and then we all start making our way outside towards my mom's black SUV. Dr. Lombardi had talked to me a lot about how I should sit down and have a talk with my family about where I'm at and how I'm feeling and I'm going to do that tonight at dinner before I lose my nerve. I'm sure being back with my family will eventually wear me down so I want to do it as soon as possible, before I'm afraid to say what I want to say. I know that they probably think that I just wanted to have a celebratory 'welcome home' type of dinner because they all seem pretty excited to see me home.

I mean, I'm pretty excited to be home too but I still miss Renée back at the center. Our goodbye this morning was pretty tearful and incredibly sad, just like our goodbye with Mia was last month when she left the center to be with her family again. Soon, Renée will be out too, just after the new year, so she doesn't have that long to go either.

When we get to the restaurant I'm in the front of our five person group so I say to the hostess, "Table for six, please."

"Six?" Penn wonders curiously. "Ana, there's only five of us."

"Actually, I invited Peter too," I tell him calmly as the hostess grabs some menus from the podium and then we all start to follow her through the calm dining area of the restaurant to a large round table with six chairs.

"What?" My mother nearly shrieks just when she hears me mentioning Peter's name. I knew that they would be upset when I told them that I'd invited my oldest brother to join us for this dinner, which is why I had waited as long as possible to tell them.

"I want to talk to all of you at the same time," I inform them, trying to seem calm about the whole thing even though I'm admittedly nervous about how they're going to react.

"Ana, you shouldn't have done that," My dad tells me as we all sit down. I sit beside Penn with an empty chair to my left so that Peter can sit beside me when he gets there.

"I know that you guys don't like him but he's my brother. He's family, although you guys seem to forget that. That's why I wanted to go out to dinner because if we stayed at home, then you'd be able to kick Peter out but you can't if we're out in public. If you're too uncomfortable with it, then you can leave but I hope that you don't because I want to talk to everybody together. As a family. Is that alright?"