Page 18 of Worth the Wait
Ron glanced over his can. “Ain’t you limping?”
Nathan rubbed above the joint where the scar tissue always pulled tight in the cold. “Physio says I need to keep it active.”
Ron snorted. “Can’t have been that bad if you’re running for chips.”
Nathan offered the faintest smile. “S’pose it could’ve been worse. Could’ve been both legs.”
That shut Ron up.
Nathan didn’t bother to mention the desert. Or the blast. Or what it had taken to even walk again, let alone run. He didn’t talk about the scar tucked beneath the hem of his shorts, or the quiet fury that came every time he remembered why it happened.
He’d save that story for someone who might actually give a fuck.
Ron cracked the can open with a loud hiss.
“You gonna be alright?”
Ron took a swig, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’ve been here by myself for fifteen years. I’ll survive another night.”
Nathan folded his arms. “Sorta meant with Alfie.”
“I raised a teenage boy already. Think I can manage another one.”
“Alfie ain’t me.”
He wasn’t. Not even close.
Alfie pushed back at everything. Rules. Authority. Expectations. He didn’t shrink to fit anyone’s mould. He challenged. Snapped. Lit fires to watch them burn. Where Nathan had once fallen in line, swallowed grief like medicine and turned himself into a machine who followed orders, Alfie was a storm with no leash.
A fuse already burning.
Nathan had spent his teenage years learning how to disappear in plain sight. And back then, the only person who ever really saw him had been Freddie.
Freddie.
He still remembered the way Freddie looked at him. How there was more to him than rules and obedience and trying not to cry.
Now here he was, trying to parent a boy who reminded him more of Freddie than he dared admit. Sharp-tongued, defiant, full of fire. And Nathan wasn’t sure if that made him feel closer to something he’d lost, or if it hurt more.
Either way, he wasn’t ready to talk about it.
Certainly not to Ron.
His dad sat down at the kitchen table, the wood creaking beneath him. “All teenage lads are the same. They want freedom, and they want to get laid. That’s it. And ifhe stopped pissing about with those crayons and used those hands for something useful, he might get both.”
“They’re not crayons, Dad. He likesart.”
“Art? Where the fuck is drawing gonna get him, eh? You need to be teaching him proper skills. Get him down the garage.”
Nathan stared at him for a beat, then looked away. The kitchen walls were the same pale green they’d always been, patched in places with mismatched touch-ups. The window over the sink fogged with grime, looking out onto the overgrown garden that had once been their football pitch. He could still see his younger self out there, booting a ball around with Freddie until it disappeared into the hedges. Before everything went wrong. Before his mum got sick and the house grew quiet and cold.
Coming back here had been a last resort. He’d told himself it was temporary. A few weeks. Until Alfie found his feet and Nathan figured out what the hell came next. But the walls were already closing in, pressing old memories back into his skin.
He glanced over at his dad. Older now, greyer, but still somehow the same. Solid. Unmoving. A wall he could scream at, yet it still wouldn’t echo back.
“Alfie’s been through stuff,” Nathan said, finding it easier to defend his son than himself. “The art is his way of dealing with that. He’s… not like us.”
Ron scoffed. “Everyone’s been throughstuff. Doesn’t mean you go soft.”
