Pieces of Home

25. Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Rye

He felt small. And that somehow didn’t really make any sense, since he was big now. Taller than his mom by a few inches even.

But as Rachel had been asking him questions—simple questions that should have been really easy for him to answer—he’d just felt smaller and smaller and smaller, until he was that little boy again. Just eight years old. Walking home from school and wondering if he’d gone right on past Sycamore Avenue because he’d definitely walked too far.

“I just need to ask you a few questions, Ryan...”

His stomach was a knot of pain and ick. Still. Even though Rachel had left several minutes ago.

“What can you tell us about what happened to you?”

Nothing. He couldn’t tell them anything. Because he couldn’t make his words work.

“Do you remember what happened the day you disappeared?”

Yes. But god, how he wished he didn’t.

“Can you tell us where you were before Jake found you?”

Rye shook his head again, though the questions were only playing on repeat in his head now. He couldn’t tell them. His words wouldn’t work. And even if they did, there were absolutely no words to describe that awful hellhole.

“Ryan, hi, I’m Sue,” came a soft voice from just in front of him. He barely stopped himself from flinching as a chair scraped the ground lightly. “I’m a nurse practitioner, and I run the medical clinic here in town.”

“Sue’s a good friend of mine, sweetie,” his mom said. Her arm squeezed his shoulders gently, but the gesture didn’t make him feel better. He tucked his head down more against his knees.

Couldn’t they just leave now? When would he get to go home? He didn’t want to keep failing as they tried and tried and tried to get him to talk .

“Jake mentioned you’d had a few coughing fits over the last week, and I wondered if I might just do a quick checkup to make sure you’re healthy,” Sue explained. “Would that be okay with you, Ryan?”

No. Don’t touch me. That was what he wanted to say. An uncomfortable buzzing started in his fingers, and he opened his eyes partway and lifted his chin just enough to see Sue. She sat in a chair just a few feet in front of him, and she was short like his mom, but thinner. Her dark eyes were kind, and she had a soft smile.

She seemed nice.

Not awful.

Yet the thought of anyone touching him made the knots in his stomach coil tighter. He swallowed against the discomfort.

“It’ll be quick, just a few minutes,” Sue said, and he sort of wanted to believe her.

But he shook his head, scrunched his eyes shut, and shrunk back against the wall more. Please just leave me alone. He didn’t even know why he was so scared. He shouldn’t be. Yet he felt himself start to tremble again.

“Ryan, maybe you should—”

He shook his head, cutting off his mom’s plea. No! He wanted to scream the word, as he had at Jake’s that first time he’d found his voice. But nothing happened.

There was some quiet murmuring, and then some familiar, uneven footsteps came closer. The chair scraped the ground again.

“Hey, Rye. It’s me.”

Jake.

Rye lifted his eyes to see Jake sitting just in front of him, where Sue had been sitting not a moment ago. He had one hand resting on his bad leg, rubbing it lightly, and Rye frowned, remembering how much pain Jake had been in many of the days he’d been at Jake’s house. He looked up and met Jake’s soft gaze. Jake smiled at him.

“This is all kind of overwhelming, huh?”

You have no idea.

Jake chuckled quietly with a small shake of his head, almost as though he knew exactly what Rye had been thinking. A tiny bit of the tension left Rye’s shoulders.

“I know it’s scary too. But you’re safe here,” Jake promised, his smile even softer now. He continued. “Sue would like to do a short checkup to make sure everything’s okay with your lungs and heart. Your mom can stay with you, or I can stay with you, so you won’t be alone. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

I’m scared.

“You can say no. It’s your choice, Rye.” Jake said the words quietly, and Rye closed his eyes as a shudder rolled through him.

There it was again, that promise that Rye somehow just knew Jake would always keep. That promise that it really, really was Rye’s choice. And Jake trusted Sue and would stay there with him if he asked.

He also... didn’t want to be sick. He’d been sick plenty of times before, and it had always been awful. Cold and hot and painful and scary.

Fighting against the nausea and fear and whatever else it was that was making him uncomfortable and scared, Rye made his decision. Then he somehow managed to force out one word, his voice low and shaky. “O-okay.”

“Ah, great. You’re sure, Rye?”

“Yes.” This word came a little easier, though his throat still felt raw.

“Great, thank you, Rye,” Jake said, and Rye could hear the relief in his voice.

His mom’s hand rubbed his arm gently. When she spoke, there was some emotion in her voice Rye couldn’t quite understand. “How about I go get you some water, sweetie?”

Rye nodded quickly, and a moment later, his mom squeezed his arm again and then stood and was gone.

“Okay, Ryan, this’ll only take a few minutes. Would you like Jake to stay?”

His nod was even quicker this time, and his heart started thrumming harder in his chest as he heard quiet rustling and something unzip. Jake’s warmth settled on the bench next to him, and the same large, gentle hand from earlier came to rest very, very lightly on his back. Rye kept his eyes closed as he took a breath.

“Okay, Ryan, I’m just going to need to listen to your lungs and heart, okay? So I’m going to need you to unzip your coat...”

It was painless. And it really did only take a few minutes. Yet, by the time Sue was done, Rye wanted to find a corner to disappear into. She’d had to put a small, cold piece of metal on his chest and back, underneath his shirt, and he’d had to take slow, deep breaths in and out while she’d listened.

There was good news though—his lungs sounded “clear,” whatever that meant. He took it as good news because Sue sounded happy about it and Jake had murmured a very quiet “oh good” as his hand had pressed just a little stronger into Rye’s back.

Afterward, Rye fumbled to put Jake’s coat back on, and Jake left his side so his mom could sit next to him. It was one warmth replaced by another, and he found himself grateful for it.

But then everything got loud again. Rachel and the other police officer—the older man with the big voice whose name was Wayne, maybe—came back out of the office and started talking, saying something about some people who were going to be coming in tonight and tomorrow. One of them sounded important, like he was coming from a long ways away. And they’d want to ask Rye more questions.

More questions he was sure he wouldn’t be able to answer.

He wanted to tell them that. He wanted to explain himself. But as his mom started asking questions of her own, fear and desperation obvious in her voice, Rye found he was even starting to have trouble making sense of the words in his head. And the warmth around him started to turn cold.

“Jake, would you mind if we head out to your place first thing in the morning and check out the beach where you found him? Do you know which direction he came from?”

Jake said something short and light, but Rye didn’t hear the exact words. His mind plummeted him back to a week ago. The man’s anger as he’d been punishing Rye for... something. Hitting Rye again and again and again, and yelling profanities at him. Then the phone ringing from upstairs, the trickle of light coming into the basement through the not-completely-closed door. Rye’s decision. His escape. His frantic sprint through the forest. His certainty that there was an awful darkness chasing him, certainty that he’d end up fuckin’ dead .

He heard himself whimper, though the sound was also oddly detached as well, like it actually didn’t belong to him. And the voices around him quieted.

“Ryan, my beautiful boy.” His mom’s fingers ran gently down his cheek, soft and careful. “How would you like to go home now?”

Yes. Please, yes, mama. That’s all I want. He nodded, folding his arms low across his stomach. “P-please.” I want to go home.

His mom stiffened next to him for a second, and he heard her sniffle. But then her fingers touched his cheek again. “Okay, sweetie. Okay.”

Rye sat with his mom in the back seat of Rachel’s truck, his head on his knees and his eyes closed tightly. They’d stopped. And someone had said they were here.

Home.

He didn’t know if it was the same home he’d left fifteen years ago, and he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes and look, despite the gentle voices around him telling him it was okay. His mom’s gentle voice next to him. And Rachel’s from the front seat. And then his door opened, and a rush of cold air hit him, along with more voices .

More voices he didn’t recognize.

And not for the first time that day, he couldn’t breathe. He tried to move away as a big, heavy hand set on his shoulder. A deep voice, a man’s voice, said his name, and something else. And suddenly, he was trapped there, the seat belt holding him in place with nowhere for him to go.

Darkness and panic erupted in him, surrounding him, and he instinctively reached up with both arms to cover his head, trying as best he could to protect himself.

The voices around him changed then. A scolding tone, an apology. And everyone backed away and gave him space. But his heart wouldn’t stop racing and his stomach wouldn’t stop churning.

God, he was an awful fucking mess.

The involuntary curse in his head sent a fresh wave of nausea through him, and he pressed his face more into his knees, willing everything to quiet down and those other voices to go away.

“Ryan, sweetie, it’s okay. It’s just Uncle Jon. He’s sorry, he was excited to see you, and...”

His mom kept talking, continuing the apology probably, but her words were blurred, and he couldn’t hear them right. He just wanted out of the car now. Out of the car and into the house and away from...

. . . Uncle Jon?

Tears stung his eyes as wonderful memories from his childhood—memories he’d long forgotten, memories where his uncle had been so present, so loving, so supportive—came rushing back to him. He did recognize that voice. He did.

He swallowed hard and forced himself to turn his head toward where he heard his uncle apologizing again. And then he had to hold back a sob.

His uncle stood back a few feet from the car now, one hand up and rubbing the back of his neck. His once-dark hair was now almost completely gray and white, and deep wrinkles were etched across his face—wrinkles that Rye somehow recognized as worry lines.

“Hi, Rye. Remember me, buddy?” Uncle Jon asked, his voice softer now than it had been moments ago. Softer even than it was in Rye’s memory. Softer and... older, too.

Rye blinked and nodded, and Uncle Jon smiled broadly.

“Sorry if I startled you, buddy. I’m just so happy to see you.”

Rye’s eyes blurred with tears as he nodded again.

“Ready to go inside, sweetie?” his mom asked from his other side. And without meaning to, Rye’s gaze jumped beyond Uncle Jon toward the house.

Toward home .

His home.

It was dark outside, but the house was well lit, the windows bursting with light, which flooded onto the lawn. Small round lights tucked into the grass illuminated the stone walkway leading up to the porch. The same stone walkway he remembered. The outside of the house was also the same as he remembered—a light-blue color, maybe a bit more faded now, and with white trim along the edges of the roof. The rosebushes lining the front of the house were dotted with small, brightly colored blooms, mostly pink and yellow.

It was home.

Bits and pieces of other memories—some fragmented, some whole, some fuzzy—returned to him. And he closed his eyes as he tried to hang onto them, scared for a moment that he might lose them again. Lose them and then never be able to find them.

His mom’s hand found his back. “Let’s go inside, sweetie?”

He nodded, and he reached down to unfasten his seat belt. By the time he’d lowered his feet to the floor and turned to scoot out of the car, his mom had found her way around to the door to meet him. And Rachel was there, and Uncle Jon, and when he glanced back up at the house, he saw another woman in the doorway, a smile on her face and tears on her cheeks.

It took him a moment, and it wasn’t until his mom reached out and took his hand and said, quietly, “That’s Aunt Tanya,” did Rye remember her.

He hated it—suddenly, and with more intensity than he could have ever expected—he hated it. He hated that he’d lost so much. He hated that he’d forgotten so much. Aunt Tanya’s face. Uncle Jon’s voice. His mom...

It felt sharp and painful, even as he let his mom guide him out of the truck and up the walkway and into the house. And even as Aunt Tanya hugged him. And especially when Uncle Jon stepped closer, probably also wanting to hug him, but he flinched away, nearly stumbling.

Especially then.

There were more apologies, and everything felt icky and awkward. And broken. Rye felt completely, utterly broken. But he wanted not to be. He wanted that so much.

So he forced himself to nod and stay still when his uncle asked this time if he could give Rye a hug. He hurt. It hurt. Not the hug itself, but the fact that he nearly couldn’t stop himself from pulling away, the fact that his stomach ached, not from hunger but from nausea. The fact that after his uncle stepped away, Rye did back up. Several steps, until his back was against the wall. And he couldn’t see anymore, because he’d had to close his eyes .

He hated it and himself, and he hated that he wasn’t strong enough to even enjoy this moment with his family.

His uncle and aunt left the room to go finish getting dinner ready, maybe, and Rachel had already left before they even came inside, though she had said she’d be back soon, too. So it was just him and his mom then in the living room, and he felt her approach him slowly as he set his palms against the wall. She murmured gentle words to him, kind and soft, and he wanted to hear them—to really hear them. But it was so hard, and that darkness... it wanted to beat him back down again. Crush him. Bury him.

“Get back in your fucking corner, you little piece of shit, or I’ll—”

Rye exhaled all the air in his lungs, strongly and deliberately, trying so, so hard to feel the warmth in the room, the texture of the green-and-white striped wallpaper that still covered the walls because his mom had always loved it, the presence of his mom standing not more than a few feet away.

But he couldn’t. Not completely anyway. The darkness wouldn’t go. The harsh, angry, rotten words of the man rooted in his head and threatened him. With a sob that he mostly muffled into his shoulder, he slid down until he was seated with his back against the wall, and he pulled his knees up and hugged them to his chest.

“S-sorry,” he forced out when his mom came to sit next to him. “Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

He was shaking and cold, and he hated it and himself even more when he heard his mom sniffle.

“Oh, my sweet boy, no. It’s okay. You’ll be okay. You’re home now. God, Ryan, I...” Her voice broke, and she was crying, and her arm wrapped around his shoulders.

He leaned into her, let her comfort him, and somehow he knew he was also comforting her, even though he felt like he had nothing at all to give.