“You’re a natural, Hunt,” my father says. I blink a few times, taken aback. Shocked. My mother catches my eye in the mirror as she puts on her earrings, a knowing smile graces her flawless face. “Seems to me you found what makes you tick. What gives you drive. You need to keep at it.” He fastens his suit jacket and waits for his words to sink in while my mother grabs her clutch on their dresser. “Those kinds of gifts don’t come around often in life, son. The best thing is to grab hold of it with both hands and never let go.”
He winks at my mother as she comes up to his side and links her arm with his.
“But…” I begin, as I rise off the bed and follow them out of their room and towards the front door. “What about the network? And Edward?”
He drops my mom’s arm as they reach the front of the house and waits patiently for her to get her coat.
“You let me worry about that,” he grins. “I’m not saying there won’t be things that won’t be expected of you, but there is no point in living life without a heart. If this is where your heart is, so be it. For now.”
A weight lifts off my shoulders as my mother gives me another breathtaking smile and follows my father through the front door.
“Seriously?” I shout a little too enthusiastically. My father laughs.
“Seriously.”
He wraps his arm around my shoulder as my mother descends the steps of our house and makes her way to a car that is waiting for them.
“You got to follow your heart, son. Wherever it leads. Even if in a few years you find it pulls you in another direction. That is life. But there is no point in walking through it without grabbing hold of what sets your soul on fire. I made my path, and I will always welcome you back in it. But if you need to make your own, I’m fine with that, too.”
He lets go of my shoulders and follows my mother.
“Besides,” he spins around and gives me a genuine smile. “Your path will always lead you home, Hunt. No matter how far you’ve wandered.”
As I stand on our front porch and watch their tail lights get further away, an uneasy feeling wraps itself around my heart as their car disappears through the front gate.
Shaking the felling off, I turn and make my way inside. The Dodgers are on in thirty, and I haven’t missed a game this season. No reason to start now, no matter how uneasy watching my parents leave just made me feel.
* * *
“We can’t let him go into a foster home, Edward. Robert and Paula, they would…” Sylvia’s shaking voice echoes through my house a few hours later.
Gone. They’re gone. They’re never coming back. I fight back the lump rising in my throat as I try and wrap my brain around the painful truth I never want to accept.
“Who said anything about foster care? He was my best friend, damn it. Don’t you think I know what kind of obligation that leaves me in, Sylvia!”
My throat closes up and I have to bite my bottom lip to keep my tears from falling. Sulking further into the shadows, in a place I used to call home, I stand and listen to Edward and Sylvia argue over what is to become of me as I watch police officers come and go from my front door.
“He needs to come live with us. Robert and Paula would want…”
“For fuck sake, Sylvia! I know what they would want!” Edward slams his glass down on a table in the living room. I jolt from the sternest in his tone, the harsh, grating sound of glass hitting glass, and the beating of my heart that’s breaking with every painful second that continues to pass.
It’s all too much.
“What are our options?” Sylvia asks one of the officers as a tear finally falls down my cheek and my body begins to shake.
“Well, I’m all for what is in the boy's best interest. At least for tonight. Losing both your parents at his age, well, the worst thing we could do is tear him away from what is most familiar. But after that, it’s up to the court to decide.”
“Paula would want us to take him in,” Sylvia demands. The officer sighs. He’s tired, worn out from the burden that was his to carry tonight. Edward on the other hand is angry, annoyed. It never escaped me how much he disapproved of the way my parents raised me. Even if I was his best friend’s son.
“If they didn’t leave a will,” Edward says.
“Forget about wills!” Sylvia shouts. “We have friends in the court system. The judge owes you a favor. And if you think…”
“Sylvia!” Edward yells.
I bring my arms up and wrap them around my middle, tight enough to hurt, tight enough to feel, so tight it reminds me that I’m alive. Still breathing. Unlike Mom and Dad, who only left here an hour before the officer in the other room showed up at my front door and the babysitter let him in and my whole life changed forever.
I look up and see Edward and Sylvia’s daughter poke her head around the corner. She locks eyes with me. Pity fills her stare. I hate the way it feels.
