My brother and I didn’t speak for three years.
I told myself I was fine. I told myself I didn’t miss him. I told myself silence was easier than reopening old wounds.
Then, one winter night, my car broke down outside his building.
I almost called a tow truck. But instead, I called him.
He picked up immediately. “Where are you?”
No hesitation. No anger. Just those three words.
Outside his place, gripping my phone, heart pounding, I realized three years of rehearsed speeches couldn’t prepare me for this.
The fight that ended everything was stupid—until it wasn’t. Over money, over words we couldn’t take back. “Maybe I’d be better off without you,” I said. He nodded and walked out. Neither of us reached back.
Life went on. Pride filled the gaps. Holidays hurt. But three years passed.
That night, snow crunching under his boots, he crouched beside my car. “Battery’s dead,” he said. Then, faintly smiling: “Yeah. You always did ignore warning signs.”
Something broke open.
He insisted I come inside while we warmed the jumper cables. Familiar smells, an extra mug. Words we’d avoided for years lingered.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“I thought you were right. That you’d be better off without me.”
“No,” I said. “Not what I meant.”
We lost birthdays, holidays, ordinary Tuesdays. But we found this: pride and fear had been standing between us, not distance.
Before I drove away, he hugged me—the old kind. “Don’t disappear again.”
“I won’t,” I promised.
Now, silence doesn’t last. We call. Because sometimes the people we think are farthest away are just waiting for us to make the call.
