Page 10 of Another Chance
5
Eric had just turned and walked away. Of course he had. What had Theo honestly expected to happen? Had he thought that the horrible thing that Theo had done, the thing which had separated them for so many years, would just go away because Theo was back now?
Time couldn’t be turned back. No matter how much Theo would have liked to, knowing what he now knew about himself, go back to that forest, to that fallen log, and this time, not pull away from the kiss, there was no way to do that.
He’d lost his best friend, and after Eric turned and left, Theo sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, fingernails scratching at his own scalp, as he went into the house. His father had dropped off the keys, and the smell of dust, of mold, of musty old house, filled his nose from the moment he stepped in.
For eight long years, no one had been in this house. No human being, anyway. He was pretty sure that he did smell some sort of animal, but what did he know? Maybe it was just mildew. It wasn’t like he was highly experienced with this sort of thing.
Looking around, Theo shook his head and rubbed at his eyes, which were itching fiercely with all of the allergens in the air. There was a thick layer of dust over everything, every surface, making everything filthy. He didn’t even know where to start. Like, he literally had no idea.
Damned if it wasn’t weird to be back here. Damned if, dust or not, part of him didn’t feel like he’d only stepped outside for a few minutes, and now he was back. Everything was where it had been left, and he slowly walked, dust rising around him, to the wall where a portrait hung. With shaking hands, he pulled it down.
There were three people in this picture, one which Theo could remember vividly having sat for. His mom had dragged them out to get it professionally done the Christmas before she’d left them, and Theo could still remember the stiffness of the collar closing around his neck, the tie feeling like a noose.
His mother was there, and, of course, she hadn’t aged a day. She looked exactly as he remembered, with her long, honey blonde hair and her dark, sparkling eyes, her grin wide and sincere as she looked into the camera, completely unaware of what fate had in store for her.
Theo touched the glass, just for a moment, and his fingers left little divots in the layer of dust which clung even here. He cleaned it away as best he could, with just his hands, and then hung it reverently back up on the wall.
Yes. It was right that he had come. Awkwardness with Eric or not, it was the correct thing to do. Even just seeing that picture of his mother was absolutely worth it. Sighing, Theo went to flick the lights on, expecting a reassuring golden glow, but not getting it.
Of course, the power wasn’t on. Of course, his father wouldn’t still be paying for electricity after all of these years. Theo should have thought about that, made arrangements ahead of time.
Or his father could have done it, damn it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known that Theo was coming.
Suddenly exhausted, Theo walked through the house, which was thankfully small. His job still seemed much more daunting, and he was starting to wonder if a few weeks would be enough to do it all. It certainly wasn’t in any shape to be shown or sold right now.
Unless they just knocked it down, he supposed, and built a new house. That idea sat badly with him, though back in New York he would have told himself that he didn’t even care. What was this place to him?
He saved his bedroom for last. It would be empty, he knew, because he had packed up all of his stuff himself. The furniture would be there, of course, since they’d bought all new stuff right after moving to New York, but that was about it.
Why was it so cold? Was it just his imagination? Of course, there was no heat in the house, but when he touched the doorknob, when he gripped it and turned it, he was sure that the metal was far cooler than it should have been.
The door swung open, and his appreciative writer’s brain even noted the ominouscreaaakof hinges that could use a judicious application of oil. Not that he had much time to wryly appreciate the entirely appropriate noise because as the door slid open, he looked into a scene that he most decidedly had not expected.
There was a hole knocked clean through the side of the house.
The smell of mildew, of rotting cloth, was thick in this room, even more so than in the rest of the house. The furniture had all been ruined, the bed soaked, the wood of the dresser warped, the fragile Ikea desk shattered to bits. Across all of it lay the culprit. The rest of the house had seemed pretty sound to him, but here, the walls had been breached.
There had been a tree in the backyard, way in the back, a nice big Douglas fir. In some storm or another over the last eight years, that tree had been knocked down, and Theo’s former bedroom was half full of it. The wall had been bashed in, and all of a sudden, the coldness he’d felt even from outside the door made a lot more sense.
Suddenly, Theo was overwhelmingly, completely grateful for the fact that he’d had enough presence of mind on his last day here to shut the door behind him. The animal smell was heavier here, but at least it seemed to be contained to this room, mostly.
And then the hissing started.
Theo jumped when he heard it. It seemed to be coming from the direction of the soaking wet, ruined bed, and Theo took a deep breath and forced himself to move toward it rather than screaming at the tops of his lungs and running away, which was what that low, animalistic, bestial noise honestly made him want to do.
One step, and then another. As he got closer,he saw that one of the tree branches had slashed a slit in his mattress, and the spicy, tickling smell of mold was hot in his nose as he approached. The hissing got louder, and seconds later, Theo started to laugh.
It was a cat.
No, not even a cat. Just a kitten, a baby, who couldn’t have been older than three months old, if that. It was tiny and adorable, and it wasn’t even hissing at him but at the rent in the mattress, where Theo, as he got closer, heard scratching noises. Bugs, or mice, were infesting the place where he had slept for years, and he couldn’t help but get a creeping feeling along his spine at the thought.
The cat was just hunting whatever was in the mattress, he realized, and he smiled to himself as he watched the little tail poofed out like a bottle brush, the orange and white tabby fur fluffy, too, especially along the spine, as the tiny creature tried to make itself look bigger.
Theo watched the fierce little predator, smiling a little. It was just so damn cute, and it had to be just barely old enough to be away from its mother. He crouched down, so that he wasn’t looming over it quite so much, and clicked at it softly.
“Hey, kitty,” he coaxed, and the kitten cocked its head at him, the hissing stopped as it looked Theo over. Golden eyes stared at him, the slit pupils huge and black, tail no longer fluffed out but lashing back and forth as the little baby creature tried to decide if he was a threat or not.
