Running Towards the Light

Chapter 15 - Plans

As soon as West pulled the car in front of our house I immediately jumped out and ran towards the front door, eager to get away from my brothers and their protective ways. I let the wind whip my hair in all directions - mostly in my face - trying to ignore my brothers calling out to me. From what I could make out they were scolding me for jumping out of the car without it even being in a completely stopped position as I hurried to the front door, fumbling to get my key in the lock.

Anything to get away from my brothers!

I swung the door open, flinging my shoes hazardously off of my feet and leaving them scattered in the entryway before hitching my backpack higher on one shoulder and making a move for the stairs.

"Whoa! What's got you in such a rush?"

I turned my head to the side to look at my oldest brother, my right foot only on the first step of the stairs as I hung on the banister to keep from falling.

"Chris!" I beamed a grin spreading on my face at the sight of my oldest brother already home from work.

My brothers and I usually all go home from school together, unless we have after school plans and we are usually home alone for the next couple of hours until Chris gets back from his work. By then it's usually dinner time so we - mainly Chris - makes dinner, we eat, stay up a little later and then go to bed.

The afternoons usually go by really fast and I only get to see my eldest brother for a short part of those hours so seeing him here already naturally made me super happy and a great surprise. Plus he can also mediate if my other brothers decide to bring up the whole Brady situation, something that I hope they will not do.  

Dylan's kinda all over the place on what time he'll get home because sometimes he'll come home around the same time as Chris, sometimes he won't come home at all, or sometimes he's already home when we get back from school so I'm not exactly sure what his schedule is.

A grin spread out on my face, the excitement and joy just radiating off of me as I fully took in the surprise that my oldest brother was home, on some random Friday at that. 

I let my backpack roll off my shoulder and drop to the ground at the bottom of the stairs as I ran up to Chris and hugged him.

Chris laughed crouching down as I ran up to him. Chris caught me around the waist before picking me up in the air and spinning me around once. I giggled as Chris nestled his face into my shoulder, his laughter rumbling off of my body. My arms circled around his neck as I threw my head back in laughter.

"My little beetle," Chris whispered in my hair as he lifted me away from his body to look at my face.

I realized then that Chris was still wearing a suit, his navy blue tie was loosened a little bit but his hair was still perfectly styled like it was when he went to work. Unlike his mop of dirty blond hair that he wears at home.

"My, my, you're getting too heavy for this old body. Must be the growing you guys can't seem to stop doing." Chris teased me.

Chris let go of me for a split second as he pretended to drop me because of how heavy I was and then caught me again, lifting me into the air once more as I giggled, the grin on my face growing larger and larger a second.

Chris has always been pretty hyper sensitive to his age because out of his seven younger siblings five of them are underaged and one just turned a full adult. So I think he feels like he's very old compared to us and doesn't really fit in, seeing as Dylan is really his only close aged brother.

My brothers and I tease Chris and Dylan a lot about their ages and how they're so old and stuff and I really wonder why it bothers Chris so much because Dylan just rolls with it but Chris explained to me that he had to really step up into his big brother role when I was born which was when he was only twelve, so he was forced to grow up earlier than most kids which makes him feel extra old now that he has been an adult for such a long time when he felt like he was an adult in his childhood years.