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. Hedidrecognize 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’dforgottenso 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, Ryedidback 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—toreallyhear 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.
