—
On Sunday morning, Austin had gotten a call from Stiles to practically go vandalize the school later in the night with him and Scott.
He denied as unfortunately, while he wanted to try and enjoy his time with his friends, it was officially the one year anniversary for the death of Maximus George.
October 30th, the night before Halloween.
Max absolutely adored Halloween, it was his favorite holiday, right after Christmas.
Austin remembered how he and his little brother made plans to go trick or treating before everything went to shit, thanks to James.
That God awful man. There wasn't a single good thing that came out of him being a person. Aside from the children he gave Jennifer, only to selfishly take one away from her, leaving Austin and Jennifer to never see him again. On top of that, he was an all around terrible husband and father.
In all honesty, neither Jenn or Austin would have had much of a reaction if it were just James that died. If it wasn't a car crash, it definitely would have been from alcohol poisoning, the man had a terrible addiction.
The mother son duo had spent majority of their day either crying or doing something to prevent the tears.
Jennifer obviously spent her time baking. She made an insane amount of cookies that she would, no doubt, be giving away to Austin's friends and Ryder's family. She had recently found out of Josie's obsession with her homemade oatmeal cookies.
While Austin wanted to tell his mother to slow down as she wouldn't have enough containers to store anything in, Austin knew this was her way of coping, so he didn't bother taking that from her.
Jenn had only cried once that morning, and to say she was proud of herself would be an understatement.
There had been times where she's felt like a bad mother for being so numb about her youngest sons death. But she couldn't help that she didn't want to express her sadness to the public, instead hiding her true feelings through friendly smiles and the smell of chocolate chip cookies, until she was in the comfort of her own bedroom where she prayed Austin couldn't hear her.
He did.
But he knew better than to disturb her after she spent the whole day faking her happiness.
She was healing.
In an odd way, yes, but she was getting there. It had only been a year after all, and even then, you never really get over the death of a child. Especially a child as sweet as Maximus George.
A knocking on his bedroom door pulled his eyes away from the small sonic the hedgehog shirt he held in his hands.
"Austin? Ryder's here, hon."
"Okay, mom! Give me a minute, please?"
"Take your time."
Her voice was a loft softer the second time she spoke. It was clear she knew what he was doing, she didn't want to rush him out of his moment.
He wished she did as the longer he stared at the shirt, the more his heart sunk in his chest.
Blinking away the tears, he gently laid the shirt on his pillow, smoothing it out before making his way downstairs.
His blue eyes almost immediately locked on Ryder speaking to his mother. And for almost a second, he had forgotten what day it was.
"Hey, Ry."
The girl perked up, "Hi."
He tilted his head towards his room, "Come on."
•••
The bedroom was silent as Ryder kept a good distance from the bed.
After seeing the shirt that clearly belong to Austin's late brother, she felt like it was extremely disrespectful if she were to just plop down on his comforter.
Austin, on the other hand, didn't like that she stood so far away from him.
"Why are you all the way over there?"
Blinking harshly, Ryder looked at him, "No reason. How are you feeling?"
"I would feel better if you sat down instead of standing by my door like a weirdo." He chuckled a bit.
"I just don't want to overstep."
"You aren't overstepping, Ry." He stood up, grabbing her hand and dragging her to sit down next to him.
"How are you feeling?"
"Uh...oddly enough, I think i'm okay." He nodded, picking up Max's shirt.
"He liked Sonic?"
"Loved it." He corrected her, "He was supposed to dress up as him for Halloween. And then, you know...the fight happened. He would've loved you. Not as much as I do, but he definitely would have loved you." Austin smiled slightly.
"I'm sure I would've loved him."
"Oh, of course. Everyone did." He released a shaky breath. Austin took her hand, intertwining their fingers before he laid his head on her shoulder, silent tears falling from his eyes.
—
A/N: austin's so special to me...