There he was. Every version of himself he'd ever tried to outrun, preserved in this room like an insect in amber. The shelf of paperbacks, cracked spines and dog-eared pages; the ones he'd read under the covers with a torch when sleep wouldn't come. The stack of notebooks on the desk, filled with the handwriting of a boy who'd had more feelings than he knew what to do withand no one to give them to. A photograph tucked into the corner of the mirror, himself and Jenna at about thirteen, squinting into the sun outside the public library, both of them laughing at something neither of them could probably remember now.
He crossed to the photograph. Touched the corner of it.
He'd been happy that day. He remembered that much.
He turned and looked at the boxes his mother had left, stacked neatly by the wardrobe. Empty, waiting. He picked one up and began, slowly, to go through the shelves.
Some things were easy. Old textbooks, a broken alarm clock, a box of pens that had long since dried out. Trash. Some things were harder; a birthday card from his father, written in that cramped, familiar hand; a certificate from a school reading competition that he'd been so proud of he'd stuck it to the wall with blu-tac that had since left a faint mark on the plaster. He held the certificate for a moment. Then put it in the keep box.
He was halfway through the books when his mother appeared in the doorway.
"I thought I might paint it grey," she said. "Benjamin Moore, do a lovely shade. Very clean."
"Sure," Adriel said.
She came further into the room. Picked up a small glass ornament from the windowsill; a whale he'd bought at a seaside gift shop when he was nine, saved up for with his own pocket money. She turned it over in her hands.
"Do you want this?"
He did. Inexplicably, stupidly, he did. "Yes."
She set it down with a faint air of resignation, as if sentiment were a mild personality flaw she'd long since accepted in him. Then she settled herself on the edge of his old desk chair and looked at him.
"You know," she said, "I've been thinking about meal prepping. A colleague at the gallery swears by it; she lost nearly 50 pounds just from being more organized about what she eats during the week." A pause. "I thought I might send you some recipes." Her eyes moved to him briefly, that same quick sweep as before. "It's so easy to fall into bad habits when you're busy. Eating at your desk, skipping proper meals, grabbing whatever's convenient."
Adriel put a book in the box.
"You'd feel so much better, I think, if you were a bit more intentional about it. You always did carry your stress in your body." she added.
He kept packing.
"How is the job?" she said. "You haven't told me much about it."
"It's good."
"Good." She nodded slowly. "And the people? Your colleagues?"
"They're good too."
"There's no one..." She let the sentence hang. "You know. You work such long hours. It would be nice if you had someone to…"
"I'm fine, Mum."
She looked at him. Those dark eyes, patient and thorough.
"Adriel." Her voice shifted. Softer now, which was always worse, because soft meant sincere, and sincere meant the thing she said next would be the kind of thing that echoed for weeks. "I'm not trying to push. I just worry. You've always been so..."She searched for it. "So in your head. So convinced that you're somehow less. That you don't deserve…" She stopped. Started again. "I think sometimes you make it harder than it needs to be. For people to get close to you."
He went still.
"The way you hold yourself back," she said. "The way you assume things won't work out. It becomes self-fulfilling. You understand that, don't you? People can sense when someone doesn't believe in themselves. It puts them off." She paused. "I've always thought if you just carried yourself a little differently. Took a little more care of yourself. In all the ways."
She said it with genuine love. He knew that. Had always known it. The love was real, it was just that the love and the damage arrived in the same sentence, wrapped around each other so tightly you couldn't separate one from the other without losing both.
"Maybe," he said. His voice came out flat.
She watched him for a moment longer. Then stood, smoothed her blouse, and said, "Tea is ready when you are done," and left him alone in the room.
Adriel stood very still.
