My brother and I didn’t speak for three years after a fight.<\/p>\n
I told myself I was fine without him.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t.<\/p>\n
I missed his stupid jokes.<\/p>\n
His terrible advice.<\/p>\n
The way he’d call me just to annoy me.<\/p>\n
But pride is strange.<\/p>\n
Sometimes you know you’re wrong and still wait for the other person to apologize first.<\/p>\n
Three years passed.<\/p>\n
Then one winter evening, my car broke down right outside his apartment building.<\/p>\n
Snow was falling.<\/p>\n
My phone was almost dead.<\/p>\n
I sat in the driver’s seat staring at his building.<\/p>\n
I could have called a tow truck.<\/p>\n
Instead, I called him.<\/p>\n
He picked up on the first ring.<\/p>\n
He didn’t say hello.<\/p>\n
He only said,<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere are you?\u201d<\/p>\n
I told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cStay in the car.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he hung up.<\/p>\n
Five minutes later, he came running outside wearing slippers, sweatpants, and a coat thrown over a T-shirt.<\/p>\n
He opened my passenger door.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou idiot.\u201d<\/p>\n
I laughed.<\/p>\n
\u201cNice to see you too.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’re freezing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then he got into the car.<\/p>\n
For the next hour, we tried to get it started.<\/p>\n
We failed.<\/p>\n
Eventually, he looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cCome upstairs.\u201d<\/p>\n
I hesitated.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you sure?\u201d<\/p>\n
He rolled his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn’t run outside in slippers to let my sister freeze to death.\u201d<\/p>\n
I followed him upstairs.<\/p>\n
His apartment looked almost exactly the same.<\/p>\n
The same old couch.<\/p>\n
The same coffee table.<\/p>\n
And on the refrigerator was a photograph of us as children.<\/p>\n
I stared at it.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou still have that?\u201d<\/p>\n
He shrugged.<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n
We sat in silence.<\/p>\n
Then he made two cups of hot chocolate.<\/p>\n
Just like Mom used to.<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou remembered.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember everything.\u201d<\/p>\n
I finally said the words I’d been too proud to say for three years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked down.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo am I.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI should have called sooner.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo should I.\u201d<\/p>\n
We both laughed.<\/p>\n
Then he said something that made me cry.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what I hated most about those three years?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery time something funny happened, I still wanted to call you.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wiped my eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe too.\u201d<\/p>\n
We talked until midnight.<\/p>\n
About the fight.<\/p>\n
About our parents.<\/p>\n
About everything we’d missed.<\/p>\n
Then he said,<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to tell you something.\u201d<\/p>\n
My heart tightened.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n
He walked to a drawer and pulled out a small envelope.<\/p>\n
It had my name on it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wrote this two years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n
I opened it.<\/p>\n
Inside was a letter.<\/p>\n
I don’t know if you’re ever going to speak to me again.<\/em><\/p>\n But I want you to know something.<\/em><\/p>\n No argument is big enough to erase my sister.<\/em><\/p>\n My eyes filled with tears.<\/p>\n If you ever need me, call.<\/em><\/p>\n I don’t care if it’s 3 a.m.<\/em><\/p>\n I don’t care if we haven’t spoken in ten years.<\/em><\/p>\n I’ll answer.<\/em><\/p>\n I looked at him.<\/p>\n \u201cYou really wrote this?\u201d<\/p>\n He nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy didn’t you send it?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPride.\u201d<\/p>\n I laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cSame.\u201d<\/p>\n The next morning, we went outside to look at my car.<\/p>\n The battery was dead.<\/p>\n My brother smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cGood.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGood?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBecause now you have an excuse to come back tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n I laughed.<\/p>\n We spent the entire weekend fixing the car.<\/p>\n We didn’t fix everything between us.<\/p>\n Not immediately.<\/p>\n But we started.<\/p>\n And that was enough.<\/p>\n Months later, I received a call from him.<\/p>\n \u201cHey.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHey.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI need your help.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWith what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI’m getting married.\u201d<\/p>\n I froze.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou heard me.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou’re getting married?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNext month.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd you waited until now to tell me?\u201d<\/p>\n He laughed.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to ask you something first.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWill you stand beside me?\u201d<\/p>\n I started crying.<\/p>\n \u201cOf course.\u201d<\/p>\n At his wedding, he hugged me before walking down the aisle.<\/p>\n \u201cYou came.\u201d<\/p>\n I smiled.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere else would I be?\u201d<\/p>\n He laughed.<\/p>\n Then he whispered,<\/p>\n \u201cI’m glad your car broke down.\u201d<\/p>\n I laughed through my tears.<\/p>\n \u201cSo am I.\u201d<\/p>\n Three years of silence had ended because of a dead battery.<\/p>\n But the truth was, the battery wasn’t what brought us back together.<\/p>\n It was love.<\/p>\n It had been sitting there the entire time.<\/p>\n Waiting for one of us to be brave enough to make the call.<\/p>\n And I’ve learned something since then:<\/p>\n Life is too short to let pride have the final word.<\/strong><\/p>\n Sometimes you don’t need a perfect apology.<\/p>\n You don’t need to decide who was right.<\/p>\n You just need to pick up the phone.<\/p>\n Because the person you’re refusing to call\u2026<\/p>\n might be the person who would answer on the first ring.<\/p>\n Every time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My brother and I didn’t speak for three years after a fight. I told myself I was fine without him. I wasn’t. I missed his stupid jokes. His terrible advice. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-181968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=181968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":181969,"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181968\/revisions\/181969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=181968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=181968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/readfullstory168.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=181968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}