He laughed humorlessly and strode for the kitchen door. “Sure you will.”
“Evan.” I reached for him as he passed.
He snatched his arm away and rounded on me. “You know what? Don’t bother coming back from camp. Dad and I don’t need you here, and Aubrey doesn’t either.”
The truth of his words hit harder than any punch could, the sting lingering longest around her name. The one person to make me feel something like hope in the aftermath of our world going dark.
“I’m allowed to be friends with her,” I defended.
“No, you’re not. The last thing she needs is another person in her life who bails on her. She’s better off without you, and so am I. Stay the fuck away from us both.”
He shoved through the kitchen door, leaving it swinging in his wake as my chest tightened around my lungs. More servers rushed by with trays, jostling me to the side and trailing confetti on the carpet from the party where hundreds of people celebrated a new start.
Two minutes into the new year, and I’d already managed to fuck it up.
The front doorto the house opened, and Dad emerged onto the steps before the cab even reached a full stop. I paid the driver and grabbed the strap of my large duffel, adjusting my grip a few times as I waited for my pulse to slow.
Two years, one month, and fourteen days.
That was how long it had been since I’d last seen my dad in person. The same amount of time since I’d last been home. I’d spent the ride counting the number, right after texting Dad to let him know I was coming.
He’d responded right away.
So many times, I’d come home like this after being gone three, eight, twelve months straight. Enough that I held a picture of it in my mind, exactly how it would look when I turned around and stepped from the cab.
The large maple tree standing watch out front, its branches bare, the fallen leaves long since raked and removed from the yard. Mom’s trimmed rose bushes that lined the walkway to the door where the porch light shone to welcome me home. The tidy brick exterior with its large bay window and slanted gray roof Evan and I tried to climb onto from his bedroom window more than once growing up, like the fools we’d been. It was a miracle we hadn’t broken more bones.
I knew what waited for me, and still, I was terrified to face it. Because all of those things could be the same, but nothing about home would be.
The smack of the storm door rang through the quiet street, telling me my dad was walking down the steps. I took a last deep breath and flung open the cab door.
The cold air seized me a second before my dad did. His arms were around me almost before I was out of the cab, crushing me to him like he worried I’d disappear if he let go. I couldn’t really blame him for it.
I hugged him back as fiercely, dropping my chin to his shoulder with my eyes kept shut, too afraid to open them. Too afraid to do anything else. I strained to keep my breathing normal as emotion constricted my chest.
“Welcome home, son,” Dad whispered with a squeeze. His voice cracked as he said it, and I pinched my eyes shut harder.
I didn’t deserve his welcome. Didn’t know what to say in response. My throat was too hoarse to speak anyway, so I kept hugging him, letting him be the one to pull away.
When he finally did, the cab was gone, and my ears stung from the cold. I would have rather frozen out here the rest of the night than face what came next.
I started with just facing Dad.
He grinned up at me, tall as ever but still a few inches shorter than my six-two, his eyes the same blue Evan and I shared. His shone with joy as he assessed me the way I assessed him, and my immediate thought was justDad.
The fierceness of how much I’d missed him almost took me to the ground. Unlike Evan, Dad had taken my calls when I finally sucked up the courage to make them too many months after Mom’s funeral, but it wasn’t the same. Not even close.
It was part of why I’d avoided coming home in the first place. This overwhelming wave of emotion there’d be no getting around that I had no idea how to deal with.
Maybe my dad felt the same. If he did, he didn’t seem to expect us to figure it out now.
He clapped me on the shoulder and bent for my bag. “Let’s get inside. Is it this cold in London?”
“Nearly,” I said as I followed him up the walkway. Not that I could really tell. My body had gone numb beneath my hoodie with each step we took toward the house.
It looked exactly as I’d pictured.
I almost wished it looked different. Like in a dream when what was supposed to be one thing was another. You were “home,” but it resembled your high school cafeteria or the set of a Disney ride you went on when you were twelve.
