Chapter 62 Kit
Kit
My mom's hug is hard enough I'm surprised I don't hear any bones popping. What I do hear is her hiccupped sob in my ear. Every single one has her holding onto me a little tighter. My own eyes are watery when she finally pulls back, cupping my face.
I'm hit all over again with how shitty I've been to them. And no matter how much they worried or missed me, they respected my boundaries the whole time.
“Oh, Kit,” she says, wiping away the tears on my cheeks. Her smile doesn't hold any bitterness, not even an ounce of hard feeling. Just pure, unconditional love. It's me who pulls her back in for another embrace. She laughs, holding me tightly. “We've missed you so much, honey.”
I nod, swiping under my eyes. I tuck the fabric of the hoodie back into my hands and finally look around.
It smells the same. Like clean laundry and the warm vanilla candles Mom has always burned after she cleans. The kitchen has the same wooden table. Different flowers in the center, but the same glass vase we got her one Mother's Day.
There are still pictures hung on the fridge, mail sitting in a pile on the counter. My dad's favorite tea mug. Mom's purse left on one of the chairs, like it always was.
The carpet in the living room is the same. The couch, same. Everything inside is the same as I left it. I'm the only one that's different now.
And maybe my parents, because of me. Dad wraps his arm around Mom's waist, and she tilts her head onto his shoulder. They both just look at me, perched on the edge of the couch. Not uncomfortable, per se, but like my own threads are frayed.
“It's so good to see you here,” Mom says, wistfully. I chuckle, and Dad grins.
“Not that the pictures you sent weren't beautiful. But nothing beats seeing you safe at home,” Dad adds.
“You need a haircut,” Mom says absently, still smiling.
“He needs smaller clothes, too, by the looks of it.”
“We should take him shopping. The mall, maybe?” Mom questions.
“I bet he needs socks. New shoes.”
“I'm right here, and I'm fine.” I full out laugh now, much to my mom's joy.
“It's my birthday—I'll spoil my baby if I want to. Oh, I bet you need new underwear.” She's already moving away, and Dad is grinning like a fool in love after her. “Be ready in twenty!” she calls. Then peeks her head back around the corner. “So happy you're home.”
When Dad looks back at me, he tips his head over to the stairs.
“Why don't you take your bag up? Gather yourself for what just turned into a busy afternoon.
Tucker will be here later for your mom's birthday.
Can't wait to have both boys under my roof again.” His smile is full, then he trails off in the direction my mom went, taking my smile with him.
I wasn't hesitant to walk in the house. But going upstairs? Something a little like dread is pooling in my gut. It grows with every step.
Avoiding the creaky spots is like muscle memory, and I make it to the top with barely a groan from the old staircase.
The short hallway looms ahead of me, shadowed and feeling a little stuffier than it had downstairs.
I guess that's what happens when the two kids who used to occupy the bedrooms up here aren't here anymore.
Both rooms are closed; the only door open on this floor is the bathroom. I glance inside, switching on the light long enough to see the same blue and white striped shower curtain that hung there two years ago. Tucker’s room is the most changed space I've seen.
Nothing but bare bones left. A bare mattress on the bed. No blankets or pillows. No books on the black desk in the corner or speaker on the nightstand. Definitely no Tucker tossing a ball against his bedroom wall repeatedly until I barge in and scream like a banshee for him to stop.
Life and my choices robbed me of a lot in a few years’ time. One of those things being the years after childhood, when your siblings become more friend than enemy.
His bedroom door closes with a quiet click. Then it's just me and the bedroom door across the hall.
Is it ridiculous to feel like as soon as the door opens, I'll be consumed by whatever is left inside? Probably.
Don't be dramatic, Kit.
The knob is cool under my palm, and I hoist the bag up my shoulder and push the door open.
No monsters wait on the other side.
No vat of gooey depression falls on my head when I step inside and flick on the light.
It is the exact opposite of Tuckers bedroom, though.
It's a time capsule. I set my bag down by the door and bite my bottom lip.
The air is thick and feels like it hasn't been disturbed since the last time I left it.
But Mom must come in here and clean occasionally.
The bed is made, same black comforter. There isn't the garbage lying around that I was too tired and too fucked up to care about before.
No liquor bottles in the small trash can. No discarded clothes on the ground. But all my things are right where I left them. A book open, pages down on my nightstand. My desk is littered with notebooks, pencils, and pens. Several other stacks of books. My old laptop.
My favorite pair of Converse look sagged and abandoned in front of the closet. And my old clothes hang, untouched.
I remember packing my bags before I left. Scared to take too much from here in fear that I would take whatever darkness that clung to me. I wasn't taking any chances.
Seems silly now, but I got in and out of here as fast as I could then. My throat burns as I whisper my fingertips over the pictures still hanging on the wall.
Brett. Bowen. Brett. Bowen. Me. Bowen. Bowen. Bowen.
I suck in a deep inhale and walk over to the bed, sitting on the edge and bouncing my leg. I want to text him. Tell him I miss him already. That I'm terrified what it means that he just let me go.
I wonder if the monsters will come out when night falls.
If they will find me in the veil of darkness and sink their claws back inside me.
Bowen won't be here to hold them at bay.
He won't be here to hold me together if it all gets to be too much. I pull the hoodie over my nose and mouth, breathing in the scent of home. It’s not this room, or vanilla scented candles and laundry detergent.
It's a man a hundred miles away, tucked inside a cabin.
How many nights did he come here and be a pillar of stability in the storm of darkness? How many nights did I survive just to feel his arms around me?
What if I never feel them again? What if he never calls, and I never grow the balls to reach out? What if we orbit around each other, destined to be nothing but an almost? An almost everything.
I keep part of my face tucked inside the hoodie and move over to the window. The curtain is open a little in the middle, but I open both sides more.
The window across the driveway is dark. No movement. No sound. No set of identical faces. No cheeky Brett grin or patient Bowen assessment. It's as lifeless as a tomb.
Grief is such a fucking dick. So is Bowen Briggs.
God, I love him so much it hurts.
Where would we have been, had I been stronger then? If I had rolled over on one of the many nights we came together to shoulder our grief. What would have happened had I held his face in my hands and gave him back everything he gave me?
Would he have let me go the first time? Would he have been by my bedside when I woke up in the hospital, had I shown him how important he is to me?
What would have happened that night at his townhouse, when he was drunk and falling apart, had I opened my mouth to tell him that I was five days sober and doing everything I could to get better?
To heal. To try. That I hadn't been running around, drinking and doing whatever horrible shit he had in his head after I left his bed.
I had been so scared of failure, I hadn't told anyone where I was. Hindsight is a bitch, of course. I should have told him.
If sadness and sorrow could turn back the hands of time, I've held enough to go all the way back to before I took my first sip of alcohol. Before I was too cowardly to face the devastation on Bowen's face. Before Brett even got in his Jeep.
In another world, another reality, there is a me and Bowen who love each other because it’s inevitable. Not despite our grief, or maybe even because of. Life is simple, somewhere. But not here.
Here, I feel like every minute of silence from his end is writing our ending for good, and I don't know how to stop it. How do I change the wrongs I've committed and show him that the last thing I want to do is leave him again?
What if it's too late?