Come Back to Me

10 Years Ago: Joshua

"Let's go, Riley! We're going to be late!" My mom's exasperated voice carried throughout the first floor of our house, startling me from my book. It was just getting to the good part, too.

My brother was thudding around upstairs, his room directly above the living room where I was trying to relax and unwind. We had both gotten back from our shifts at the waterpark about an hour ago and all I wanted to do was lose myself in a good book to forget the screaming kids I had dealt with all morning. Hopefully, they would leave soon and I could have the house to myself for a few hours. My dad was away for a wedding shoot for the weekend and knowing my mom, she'd be making multiple stops while they were out. I shut my eyes and sighed.

Riley's footsteps were heavy as he ran down the hall and then down the stairs to meet our very irritated mother. "I'm ready," he grinned, as he pulled a wrinkled T-shirt over his head and stood there without any shoes on.

Our mom gave him a light smack on the shoulder and pushed him toward the door. "You can't go to the dentist without shoes on."

"Why not? Is that an actual rule?"

"Keep it up, smartass, and you're going to be stuck with that busted front tooth." My mom walked toward the kitchen to grab her purse from the counter and shook her head at me. "What do you think, Ree? Think he'll still get all the girl's attention with that snaggly tooth?"

I rolled my eyes and tucked my legs up under me on the couch, flipping a page in my book. "Maybe he should stop trying to catch volleyballs with his face instead of worrying about what girls think."

We had been playing another game of volleyball at the park last night, just Riley, me, Mal, and Beth. While Riley was distracted by a cute girl walking by, Mal spiked the ball right into his face. The girl had gotten grossed out by the blood from Riley's busted lip and the rest of us fell over laughing when we saw his tooth was broken.

"Whatever, Zig. And mom, you know the girls love me either way!" he called from the hallway and I heard another thud from what I could only assume was him falling over while trying to put his shoes on. "Let's go, Mom! I don't want to be late."

As my mom walked down the hall and passed me one last time, I rolled my eyes at her and couldn't help laughing. "He's right, you know. The girls at work all thought it was adorable he was missing part of his tooth. Especially when he started talking with a lisp. Totally pathetic."

She rolled her eyes with me and glanced at her watch. "We'll probably be gone a few hours, I want to stop at the store on my way home to pick up something for dinner. Will it just be us or am I feeding half the neighborhood again?"

"Beth is doing something with her parents tonight and I think Mal is grounded for missing his curfew. I don't know about Joshua or Noah." In more ways than one. My stomach twisted a little from saying their names. A big part of me really hoped either or both of them would show up sometime today.

The doorbell rang. My mom sighed and put her hands on her hips as she heard Joshua's voice carry down the hall. Which was followed by more banging around and a few grunts. She wandered off in their direction.

"What happened to your face?" Joshua was laughing, and I couldn't help the smile that formed on my face as the sound of it traveled into the room.

I fought the urge to get up and walk down the hall to see him. My stomach knotted but willed myself not to react outwardly as I flipped another page in my book without even seeing the words on the page.

"Joshua, we were just leaving. Riley has a dentist appointment."

"Thank God," he laughed. "You're pretty hard to take seriously with half a front tooth. Regan get you with one of her right hooks again?"