Chapter 122 122
Kaelen's POV:
It wasn't fine. Nothing was fine. But I didn't know how to say that, didn't know how to explain the weird hollow feeling in my chest that had been there since we walked through the front door yesterday. Like I'd been carrying something heavy for so long that now that it was gone I didn't know how to stand up straight.
Marlen was watching me with those too-sharp eyes. She saw too much, always had, even when she was eight years old and newly orphaned and trying to pretend she wasn't scared.
"You should go to your thing," she said suddenly.
"What thing?"
"The thing. With Annabeth. You were going to see her today, right?"
I hadn't said anything about seeing Annabeth today. But Marlen was giving me an out, and I was pathetic enough to take it.
"Yeah. Right. I should probably..."
"Go." She kicked me under the table, gentle but pointed. "We'll handle the dishes."
"Since when do you handle dishes?"
"Since now. Go away, you're being weird and it's stressing everyone out."
I stood up. Looked at my parents, who were both watching me with expressions I couldn't read. Love and guilt and also what might've been grief for the years they'd missed and the boy I'd been before everything went to shit.
"I'll be back later," I said.
"Take your time," Dad said. "We're not going anywhere."
I almost laughed at that. We're not going anywhere. Like it was simple. Like it was easy to just stay in one place and not worry about running.
I grabbed my jacket from the hook by the door and stepped outside. The air was cold, December cold, and I could see my breath. The neighborhood looked the same as always, small houses with chain-link fences and cars that had seen better days. Normal. Boring.
I didn't know what to do with normal and boring. I'd been running so long I'd forgotten how to stand still.
I got about halfway down the block before I heard the back door open and close. Footsteps on the dead grass. My mom's voice saying, "Kaelen, wait."
I stopped. Turned around. She was walking toward me, arms wrapped around herself because she'd come out without a jacket, and she looked small. Smaller than I remembered. Five years in a cell would do that to a person.
"I wasn't done," she said when she reached me.
"Done with what?"
"The conversation. The one where you pretended everything was fine and then ran away."
"I didn't run away. Marlen told me to leave."
"Marlen was giving you an escape route because you looked like you were about to crack." She stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the gray in her hair that hadn't been there in my memories of her. "I know that look, Kaelen. You used to get it when you were little and you were trying to be brave about something that scared you."
"I'm not scared."
"No. You're lost." She reached up and touched my face, just for a second, her palm cold against my cheek. "You've been the parent for five years. You've been responsible for everything, making every decision, carrying every burden. And now we're back and you don't know what you're supposed to be anymore."
I didn't say anything. Couldn't.
"I watched you in there," she continued. "Sitting in the wrong chair. Flinching when Lucian asked you for permission and then asked us. You don't know how to be the son instead of the father."
"It's not... it's not that simple."
"I know it isn't. But I need you to hear something, okay? Something important."
I waited.
"I am so proud of you." Her voice cracked on the words. "What you did for them, for Marlen and Lucian, keeping them safe and fed and in school and alive when you were barely more than a kid yourself... I don't have words for what that means to me. You gave up everything. Your college, your future, your chance at a normal life. You became their parent because we couldn't be."
"Someone had to."
"Yes. And you did. You stepped up when most people would have fallen apart." She dropped her hand from my face but didn't step back. "But Kaelen, sweetheart, you don't have to do it anymore. We're here now. Your father and I, we're here, and we're not leaving again."
"You don't know that."
"What?"
"You don't know you're not leaving. The Order is gone but there could be other cells, other threats. Something could happen. Something always fucking happens."
"Then we'll deal with it together. As a family. All five of us, not just you carrying the whole thing on your shoulders." She was crying now, quiet tears running down her face, and she didn't bother to wipe them away. "You can just be Kaelen now. Twenty-two years old, studying literature, wanting to be a writer. You can have a life. A real one. With that girl you're in love with and the future you've been putting off for so long."
"I don't know how to do that."
"I know. It's going to take time. It's going to feel wrong and weird and uncomfortable, and you're going to keep reaching for responsibilities that aren't yours anymore." She smiled, wobbly and wet. "But you'll figure it out. And we'll be here while you do. Not going anywhere. Just... being your parents again. If you'll let us."
I stood there in the cold December air and looked at my mom, at this woman I'd been mourning for five years, and something inside me broke. Not in a bad way. More like a bone that had healed wrong and needed to be rebroken so it could set properly.
I hugged her.
Not the careful, distant hug I'd given her when we first found her in that cell. A real hug, the kind I used to give her when I was a kid and the world was simple. I wrapped my arms around her and held on, and she held me back, and neither of us said anything for a long time.
"I missed you," I said into her hair. "I missed you so much, Mom."
"I know, baby. I missed you too. Every single day."
When I finally pulled back, she was still crying, but she was smiling too. That bright startled smile that I was starting to think might become permanent, now that she had things to smile about again.
"Go see your girl," she said. "I'll tell the others you'll be back for dinner."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure. We'll be here." She wiped her face with the back of her hand. "We're not going anywhere, remember?"
I nodded. Turned and started walking again, toward Annabeth's house, toward the girl who'd somehow become the most important thing in my life.
Halfway there, I looked back. My mom was still standing in the yard, watching me go. She waved when she saw me looking.
I waved back.
And something in my chest, that had been tight and anxious and wound up for five years, finally started to loosen.
If I could heal my body injuries, I could heal my heart too, right?