The back of his dark head was motionless, his shoulders tense and arms folded in front of him. He was dressed in his usual style of black everything.
Drew was right. He was a strong kid. There was nothing wrong with strength. Strength was a good thing.
Except people tended to forget that strength was usually a product of pain. That strength was sometimes your only choice.
The world breaks all of us in one way or another, and it broke my son far earlier than most. Those broken spots healed into thick scars, like iron thrown into the fire to be forged into something stronger.
I never wanted my son’s strength to overshadow his pain, for him to think it was one or the other because, often in life, it never was.
I turned to my husband, our daughter between us. He held out his arms. “Come here, peanut.”
Andi went willingly, and Drew motioned to Trav with his head.
Chest tight, I put my back to the room, to everyone but my son. “Travis.”
His shoulders moved a few inches toward his ears, but otherwise, he remained still. I felt the emotion rolling off him in waves, could practically taste the hurricane within him. But Trav was an enigma, and I wasn’t sure what kind of storm this was or what exactly he was feeling. I might understand he was broken, but our breaks were not the same.
“There’s no one out at the gate,” I told him. “No one inside it either. Didn’t see anyone on my way in.”
Nothing.
“Any trouble getting home?”
He shook his head once.
“You hurt?”
Another sharp shake of his head.
“You wanna turn around and look at me?”
Nothing.
“You know we aren’t mad at you, right?”
The spike in the energy around him told me I was getting closer to the eye of his storm.
I shifted a little, enough that I could see his reflection in the glass. His jaw was locked, dark eyes staring straight ahead. Sometimes I wondered what those obsidian eyes saw because the opaque depths kept everything a secret.
“It was scary, huh?” I said, quieter than before. “Watching someone approach your sister. Trying to take her away.”
His lower lip disappeared beneath his teeth.
“We aren’t mad, Trav. We’re proud of you.”
He turned then, so swift the curtains swayed, and he collided into me like I was a punching bag. He didn’t wrap his armsaround me, just full-body barreled into me, his face turned into my chest with his hands at his sides.
I wrapped around him immediately, thinking it would be better if this were Drew. Drew gave the best hugs on the planet. But then one of the hands at his sides lifted just enough to grab onto the hem of my T-shirt. I might not have noticed if not for the tension in the fabric at my shoulder.
Water pressed at the backs of my eyes, making my vision blur and my head feel tight. I stared ahead, thinking of the five-year-old who would hide behind my leg when life got to be too much.
I opened and closed my mouth, attempting to release some of the pressure in my head as I hunched in and hugged him harder.I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.
If I had one regret in life, it was that.
“I hit her,” he said, the words muffled against my shirt.
I forced myself not to react even though everything inside me stilled. Cupping the back of his head, I leaned in. “Who?”
