WARNING : this chapter does include panic/anxiety attacks.
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THEO CAN FEEL his entire body struggling to stay upright, his limbs shaky as he stares at the blonde woman. He opens his mouth a few times to say something but nothing comes out, instead and he goes to slam the door instead. The sound of it closing echoes throughout the house heavily, causing his dad to peer around the door curiously. He doesn't even get to ask what he wants to, Theo rushing up the stairs and locking himself away in the bathroom.
His lungs are begging for air, the tightness in his chest choking out any of the remaining air in his body. Theo's heart is racing, his arms and legs practically reduced to being limp. Why the fuck is she here? Why has she chosen now to pop up in his life?
It had taken years for Theo to push aside the pain that lingered after her leaving, he would wake up in the middle of the night and cry for the woman who used to read him stories before bed. His father had struggled to move forward without any help, left to raise a child on his lonesome because she'd decided she didn't want them anymore. She chose to leave, that whole situation was on her, she simply cannot come strolling back in like this.
There's shouting coming from downstairs as he sinks to the floor, leaning against the bathtub and putting his hands over his ears. It's so reminiscent of that day, the two adult screeching at each other for what felt like hours as he listened, the ten year old boy hearing his mother practically disown him. The worst part is that she's stayed that night, almost as an assurance that she wasn't going to leave, only to be gone by the time he woke the next morning.
Over the years, the teenage boy has struggled with containing those feelings of abandonment, and now that he's finally put it to bed she's come waltzing back in — Sapphire Silver had never been one to put others before herself, he'd learnt that at a young age.
"You cannot keep me from my son!"
Sapphire's voice echoes around him hauntingly, the words sparking that familiar feeling of hope within him that vanishes in seconds. He remembers those days where he would sit by the front door and wait for her to come home, his entire body perking up at the sound of a passing car or some footsteps on the pavement, only to be disappointed over and over again. So no, she doesn't get to do this.
"Your son? You've been gone for six years! Six fucking years! He's grown up, moved on, you cannot do this to him!"
Theo longs to go back to the night before, where he'd fallen asleep to the sound of JJ's gentle snores, before everything had gone to complete shit. The warmth that had made its way straight to his heart when he'd come to terms with the fact that he's maybe made some new friends, some people who will be happy to hang around his introverted self and not push him into being someone he's not — an early assumption but one he's clung onto anyway. Now, well any feeling of safety or comfort is long gone.
