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Chapter 4

POV Orion

As I hung up the phone, I sank into the old chair by the window, staring out into the fading light of the morning. My hands still trembled slightly.

Talking to Estella after all these years felt like ripping open an old wound. I hadn’t heard her voice in over a decade, and now, after everything we had been through, it sounded both familiar and foreign at the same time.

"How did I think this would go?" I muttered, running a hand through my hair. I hadn’t been naive enough to expect her to welcome me with open arms, but the pain in her voice cut deeper than I had prepared for.

My brother, Felis was pacing in the kitchen. He hadn't been able to sit still since I made the call. His frustration was visible in every tense movement, but I knew it wasn’t just anger. It was guilt, the same guilt that had eaten away at me for years.

"She hung up on you, didn’t she?"    Felis’s voice was low, almost defeated, as he finally stopped pacing and leaned against the counter, crossing his arms.

"Yeah," I admitted, my voice hollow. "She didn’t even let me finish. The moment I said who I was... it was like all the air left the room. She sounded" I paused, trying to find the right word, " shattered."

Felis clenched his jaw, eyes downcast. "We did that to her, Orion. We left her behind. She has every right to hate us."

I knew he was right. We had abandoned her left her to fend for herself when she was barely more than a child.

Felis’s eyes softened, the fight draining from him. "I know. I just..." He trailed off, rubbing a hand over his face. "I just miss her. We were her brothers. We were supposed to protect her."

"Do you think she’ll give us another chance?" Felis asked, his voice quiet now, almost fragile.

I stared down at my hands, unsure of the answer. "I don’t know," I admitted. "But we have to try. We owe her that much."

It wasn't easy for any of us when our father passed away. Our mother managed to take care of us for a few months before she succumbed to alcohol. Felis was only 18 when he suddenly had to take responsibility for our younger siblings. I tried to support him, of course, but at 17, I didn’t know much more than he did.

When I turned 18, I left home to go to university. I purposely chose a university several hours away because it made it easier for me to avoid the pain. I often used the distance as an excuse not to come home, telling myself it was just too far.

For the first two years, I still managed to visit every few months, but eventually, I stopped going altogether. It became too difficult to see my mother suffering like that. We really did try to help her we even got her into therapy several times, but she didn’t want it. Eventually, we gave up.

Felis stayed until he was 23 years old, raising our younger siblings, but at some point, it became too much for him as well, and he left.

The six of us brothers had always stayed in touch over the years. We all lived in LA now, so it was easy to see each other regularly. Despite everything, we remained close, at least with one another. But when it came to Estella, it was a different story. We hadn’t spoken to her in years, and the guilt hung over all of us like a dark cloud.

We’d talk about her sometimes, mostly in passing, but no one ever had the courage to pick up the phone and actually reach out. It wasn’t that we didn’t care we all carried the weight of what happened with her. But we were scared, plain and simple. Scared of what she’d say, scared of how much we’d hurt her, and most of all, scared of facing the truth about how badly we’d let her down.

It’s not like we didn’t have opportunities. We all lived in the same big city as Estella and could’ve easily tried to see her. But every time we thought about reaching out, fear would take over. And yeah, it sounds like a weak excuse, because it is. But the reality is, none of us knew how to fix what had been broken between us and Estella. We didn’t know where to start.

So we stayed in our little bubble, talking about her like she was  distant memory.
We’d convince ourselves we were too busy, or that she wouldn’t want to hear from us anyway. But deep down, we all knew we were just avoiding it. Avoiding the hard conversations, the apologies we knew we owed her, and the shame of not being there for her when she needed us the most.

Years passed, and the longer we stayed silent, the harder it became to imagine what it would take to bridge that gap. But Estella wasn’t just going to disappear from our lives, and we all knew it.

"So, what do we do now?" Leo asked me, his voice uncertain, as if he already knew the answer but needed to hear it out loud.

“We go see her. In person,” I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. My heart pounded just thinking about it.

Nash raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. “Just like that? After all these years?”

“Yeah, just like that,” I replied, but even I wasn’t convinced. I knew it wasn’t going to be as simple as just showing up at her door. We hadn’t spoken to Estella in what felt like a lifetime, and the longer we stayed away, the harder it had become to imagine what that first conversation would even look like. But we couldn’t keep running from it forever. We owed her this.

Felis sighed and looked at the rest of our brothers, who had gathered around, waiting for someone to make the first move. "You really think she’ll want to see us?"  Caelum asked quietly, his doubt echoing all of our fears.

"I don’t know," I admitted. "But we have to try. We can’t keep pretending she’s not a part of this family."

The room fell silent. The reality of what we were about to do hit us all at once. This wasn’t just about showing up and apologizing. It was about confronting everything we’d avoided for years—the guilt, the regret, and the damage we had caused by staying away.

“We can’t change the past,” I continued, “but maybe we can start fixing things. And the only way to do that is by facing her. Together.”

Felis nodded slowly, and one by one, the rest of mybrothers agreed. None of us were sure how it would go, but we knew we couldn’t keep hiding from the mistakes we’d made. It was time to face Estella, no matter how hard it was going to be.

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