Chapter Two #2
He was my baby brother. My best friend.
I missed him.
But then I saw the clench of his jaw and cold bitterness in his eyes and remembered.
He wouldn’t accept my hug if I tried. I didn’t blame him.
“Hey,” I said instead.
He turned to the elegant brunette on his arm and tipped his chin toward the stairs. “I’ll meet you by the coats. Just going to say goodbye to Aubrey and grab you a dessert, okay?”
She flashed a curious glance my way as she strode down the hall.
Evan squared his shoulders to me as if stepping into the ring. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Fair. He didn’t owe me pleasantries.
I assumed he meant what was I doing at the party since, according to Aubrey, he’d known since Thanksgiving I planned to come home for the holidays. So that was what I answered. “I wanted to be here for Aubrey.”
“Yeah?” he snapped back. “The way you were there for Mom?”
I flinched but didn’t argue. That was fair too. “I know it’s been a long time. I’m hoping to make up for it.”
“You mean you’re actually staying this time? There’s not going to be a plane you have to catch two weeks from now for an opportunity that’s just too good to pass up?”
I swallowed. “Training camp for one of my fighters starts in a week. Selection for the Olympics. I’ll be gone for a month or two, but then I’ll be back.”
He laughed humorlessly and strode for the kitchen door. “Sure you will.”
“Evan.” I reached for him as he passed.
He snatched his arm away and rounded on me. “You know what? Don’t bother coming back from camp. Dad and I don’t need you here, and Aubrey doesn’t either.”
The truth of his words hit harder than any punch could, the sting lingering longest around her name. The one person to make me feel something like hope in the aftermath of our world going dark.
“I’m allowed to be friends with her,” I defended.
“No, you’re not. The last thing she needs is another person in her life who bails on her. She’s better off without you, and so am I. Stay the fuck away from us both.”
He shoved through the kitchen door, leaving it swinging in his wake as my chest tightened around my lungs. More servers rushed by with trays, jostling me to the side and trailing confetti on the carpet from the party where hundreds of people celebrated a new start.
Two minutes into the new year, and I’d already managed to fuck it up.
The front door to the house opened, and Dad emerged onto the steps before the cab even reached a full stop. I paid the driver and grabbed the strap of my large duffel, adjusting my grip a few times as I waited for my pulse to slow.
Two years, one month, and fourteen days.
That was how long it had been since I’d last seen my dad in person. The same amount of time since I’d last been home. I’d spent the ride counting the number, right after texting Dad to let him know I was coming.
He’d responded right away.
So many times, I’d come home like this after being gone three, eight, twelve months straight. Enough that I held a picture of it in my mind, exactly how it would look when I turned around and stepped from the cab.
The large maple tree standing watch out front, its branches bare, the fallen leaves long since raked and removed from the yard.
Mom’s trimmed rose bushes that lined the walkway to the door where the porch light shone to welcome me home.
The tidy brick exterior with its large bay window and slanted gray roof Evan and I tried to climb onto from his bedroom window more than once growing up, like the fools we’d been.
It was a miracle we hadn’t broken more bones.
I knew what waited for me, and still, I was terrified to face it. Because all of those things could be the same, but nothing about home would be.
The smack of the storm door rang through the quiet street, telling me my dad was walking down the steps. I took a last deep breath and flung open the cab door.
The cold air seized me a second before my dad did. His arms were around me almost before I was out of the cab, crushing me to him like he worried I’d disappear if he let go. I couldn’t really blame him for it.
I hugged him back as fiercely, dropping my chin to his shoulder with my eyes kept shut, too afraid to open them. Too afraid to do anything else. I strained to keep my breathing normal as emotion constricted my chest.
“Welcome home, son,” Dad whispered with a squeeze. His voice cracked as he said it, and I pinched my eyes shut harder.
I didn’t deserve his welcome. Didn’t know what to say in response. My throat was too hoarse to speak anyway, so I kept hugging him, letting him be the one to pull away.
When he finally did, the cab was gone, and my ears stung from the cold. I would have rather frozen out here the rest of the night than face what came next.
I started with just facing Dad.
He grinned up at me, tall as ever but still a few inches shorter than my six-two, his eyes the same blue Evan and I shared. His shone with joy as he assessed me the way I assessed him, and my immediate thought was just Dad.
The fierceness of how much I’d missed him almost took me to the ground. Unlike Evan, Dad had taken my calls when I finally sucked up the courage to make them too many months after Mom’s funeral, but it wasn’t the same. Not even close.
It was part of why I’d avoided coming home in the first place. This overwhelming wave of emotion there’d be no getting around that I had no idea how to deal with.
Maybe my dad felt the same. If he did, he didn’t seem to expect us to figure it out now.
He clapped me on the shoulder and bent for my bag. “Let’s get inside. Is it this cold in London?”
“Nearly,” I said as I followed him up the walkway. Not that I could really tell. My body had gone numb beneath my hoodie with each step we took toward the house.
It looked exactly as I’d pictured.
I almost wished it looked different. Like in a dream when what was supposed to be one thing was another. You were “home,” but it resembled your high school cafeteria or the set of a Disney ride you went on when you were twelve.
I wanted this house to look as foreign as I felt.
Dad reached for the door handle, and I rolled my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. He swung the door open, and my heart pounded in my throat as I stepped inside, my muscles bracing as if the floor had been laid with hidden traps.
None sprang. It was just the house I’d grown up in, exactly as I remembered it.
The same family photos on the walls. Same welcome mat on the floor. Same couch and loveseat in front of the TV. Dad’s chair still in the corner beside the lamp that spilled warm light into the room.
The TV tray next to Dad’s chair was the only new addition. That and the missing floral scent. Even in the cold months, Mom had some sort of candle or spray to imitate pine or a winter bouquet. Now it smelled like nothing.
“I’ll go put this in your room,” Dad said, hauling my duffel up the stairs. “Want me to grab you some slippers?”
I unglued my feet from the entryway and shut the door behind me, swallowing the dryness from my mouth. “No, I’m good. Thanks.”
While he disappeared to the second floor, I toed off my shoes and wandered inside.
For as similar as it appeared, nothing about the house felt the same.
Like it was an aquarium drained of its water; the life it once contained drained with it.
All that remained were empty shells, and every one of them, from the couch and curtains to the dining furniture and kitchen clock, seemed to turn their accusing eyes on me.
I felt like a stranger. Unsure of my place, not wanting to touch anything I shouldn’t.
Not wanting to be here.
The floor creaked as Dad descended the stairs. “I changed your sheets when you texted. They’re the flannel ones. They should keep you plenty warm. Are you hungry?”
“I can wait until morning. It’s late.”
He waved me off. “That doesn’t matter. You had a long flight, and I’m not sending you to bed on an empty stomach.”
I followed him into the kitchen, where he rooted through the fridge.
“I don’t have much in the way of leftovers, but we’ve got bread if you want a sandwich. Or I could make eggs. Oh, and I’ll heat some eggnog.”
I almost argued but decided not to. He clearly needed this, and I was as glad for his company, even if it meant he didn’t sleep.
There was no question Aubrey had been right about him staying up late. In the bright light of the kitchen, his changes were painfully obvious.
He’d lost weight. Looked older.
He’d had white hair for years, so that wasn’t it, and the lines in his face weren’t any deeper. Somehow, he was just…frail. Wilted. A tired version of the sixty-something retiree who used to be bounding with energy. Energy he still seemed to lack even with the huge smile on his face.
Or maybe that was due to the bags under his eyes. They shouted at me like an accusation, stabbing at my guilt.
As much as I’d known when I left the way I did how fucked up it was—to stay away and not text, to rarely call, to all but disappear—a part of me had believed my dad and Evan would be okay.
That they would be there for each other the way I couldn’t be there for anyone.
That together, they would find the path toward healing I didn’t get to find after the shitty son I’d been.
It wasn’t like there was anything I could offer. Not hope. Not strength. Not solace. I was a toxin it was better for everyone to be far away from, and believing it was how I’d stayed gone for so long. But even as I let myself live inside the delusion, a part of me had known it wasn’t true.
None of us were okay. My dad least of all.
And I hadn’t been here for him any more than I’d been there for Mom.
He placed a mug of eggnog in front of me at the small breakfast table, the steam warming my nose. “So are you back for a while?” he asked as he sat across from me with his own mug. The hope in his voice was impossible to miss.
“I think so.” I tried to make my voice light. “I’ve been training this kid, Noah—I think I told you about him.”
“The kid from Allentown?”
“Him. He’s got selection camp for the Olympics starting next week, so I’ll fly out for that. But then, I’ll be back. Coach Lou is looking for someone to sell his gym to, and I’m going to see if I can make it work.”
“Your own gym?” Dad’s whole face lifted with delight. “Son, that’s incredible. Tell me more about what Coach Lou said—wait, first…” He hopped up and grabbed the bread off the counter. “Sandwich or eggs? We could even have some real fun and go for French toast. What’ll it be?”
The rocks that had filled my stomach compressed into one massive lump between my ribs, even as my mouth watered. Dad’s French toast was the best. His sandwiches and eggs too. Anything he cooked.
Here he was, wanting to cook for me, to spoil and take care of me. To treat me like I hadn’t been MIA for two years. Like I hadn’t abandoned him. Like I still deserved his love despite the holidays I’d missed and excuses I’d made.
Like loving me was as easy for him as it had always been.
Of all the ways tonight had been painful, that might have been the worst.