Richie wanted to be angry. He wanted to be so fucking angry. His fists physically ached by his side, and not that he'd ever use them again, but they flared to the roots of his nerves with twisted rage. The mix of resentment and neglect bred his anger into his core.
Castro gave him one last look, assuring that Richie was really sure about meeting with her, and obediently stepped out of the room when the boy gave his nod of approval.
Wanted. He wanted to be angry.
He wanted to ask her why the hell she could ever leave him like that. Why she would let him suffer. Why she would let him starve. Why she would let his father into the home they'd created on their own. And more importantly, why she'd let him ruin it. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask his mother. But when the door emanated the familiar sound of being pulled open, his words seemed to bound against the ceiling and rain back down on him.
Maggie Tozier stepped into the room while trying to formulate the words that would cure her son. Every shadow casting on her face was one curated by the years of darkness she had just stepped from. Her past muted the colors behind her, dulled the bright red staining Richie's tightened knuckles, and softened the volume of the atmosphere's invisible edges with the gentle tones made from the shadow that was dependent on his sunlight.
He centered his attention on her face, unsure of how to react. His eyes washed over with tears to blur the memory of the past decade, feeling the endless years of neglect begin to mount inside of him in the face of the woman who never would've wanted it but let it happen anyways.
She let it happen, but he let it happen to her, so maybe they were even.
"Richie..." Maggie began carefully, trailing off to places unknown.
She wore a face that was expectant of the anger she knew was harboring inside of him. Anger that just wasn't there anymore when she was actually standing in front of him. The anger was forgotten. The bitterness was crushed. The resent had been shattered into millions of splinters. Because despite all that had come between them, there she was, still in one piece; a symbol of the bravery he was made of.
The hug she'd captured him in would never be enough to make up for everything, yet Maggie tried regardless. Richie relaxed into her arms. When a deep breath was carried in, an even heavier one was released in return. He merely sat there and let the feeling consume him.
"Richie I'm sorry," she eventually trembled, grasping onto his back with the hope of never losing him again. Her face was pressed against his shoulder and he could feel tears begin to melt through the fabric of his t-shirt. "I'm so sorry, baby. Forgive me, won't you? You didn't deserve that. I swear you didn't. I... I didn't deserve that, either."
When Richie looked back up at her, he was crying. Really crying. You would think he hasn't seen her in 13 years and was just now being enthralled in some pivotal reunion. After all, in some mysterious way, he was.
She didn't fall from existence when his father returned, but the mother he knew did. Now he had her back. He had everything back. He was back.
"I'll let you two speak," Castro nodded, almost shedding a tear himself, and stepped away.
Maggie eventually forced herself away from the embrace to stare back at Richie. This was the first time she was properly able to look at him without dejection blanketing his features. To make things a little clearer, she swept her painted fingertips across his freckles to remove a tear. "Let's talk about it. Let me explain," she reasoned.
They took their seat in the middle of the empty room and Richie only just noticed how cold the entire thing was. It was composed of 4 concrete walls, stacked up to new heights and never letting the secrets exposed inside of them loose. It seemed a lot warmer when he didn't pay attention to his mother or his friends who were probably long gone by now. He shook himself loose of the feeling, because what he didn't pay attention to was still there, and it was there with the warmest love he'd ever felt.
In spite of that, years of desolation doesn't just leave. He still held a reasonable amount of skepticism and resentment, but he supposed that was normal of any healing victim. His eyebrow slightly drew upwards with interest, waiting for her to find a place to start.
Maggie traced along the metal table in apprehension. With her free hand, she threaded through the ebony curls that had been passed down to her son. "What do you want to know?"
"Everything other than what I don't want to know," Richie replied bluntly.
The woman gave a slow, focused glare, trying to piece together his puzzle. "I don't think I follow."
Her son stayed mute, pressing his lips together to avoid breaking the disclosure and admitting, 'I don't want to know if he's fucking killed someone.'
"Tell me why you left me," he suddenly forced out, afterwards sinking into his chair and trying to make his heart stand still with wide eyes. The question was utterly torn from him; completely against his conscience mind.
Maggie knew this was coming. The most obvious question that Richie mistook for being ambiguous was one destined to be asked. Her breathing reduced its speed, caught against time and space when she saw how broken the memories hidden behind his eyes were. Memories made from dreams within nights that weren't spent together. Just complete rejection.
She extended both arms across the table, waiting for Richie to pick up on the cues she was lying down for him. Her palms were faced upwards to expose the soft lines engraved into them. The same hands that cradled him by her side when they were the only ones to hold him. Not Henry, not his dad, nobody but her. The hands that turned the pages to picture books bestowing faraway lands, stories fresh out of the fantasies he had woven into his head when his thoughts were completely innocent. So much of that maternal protection was still there. He digressed and placed his own palm against hers.
With caution adding depth to her entire expression, her eyes studied his face - his lips barely as red as they normally are, his thoughts analyzing the familiar tears beginning to rise in her once more, and his brows knitted in concentration. She made sure she had a firm hold on him before speaking.
"I was a victim too, Richie," she whispered.
Richie didn't even bother hiding his pain. His throat turned crimson from the emotion that was choking him from within; a blade that hurts a thousand times more than anything that could actually pose a threat to his life. His neutral expression dissipated to be replaced by obvious grief.
How could he be so stupid? Really, how could he be so fucking stupid to even carry the slightest amount of bitterness towards someone who was just as affected as he was? The guilt practically slammed him into the back of his chair, the hard material pinching his spine.
He had every good grade someone could possibly have yet he still wasn't smart enough to understand why he was angry over another victim who couldn't help their circumstance. Maybe it was because she took a chance with his father that shouldn't have been taken, and that's when he remembered the cycle. An endless cycle of hurt mixed with the lethal drive for help. It's a chain that remains unbroken until someone is so damaged they can no longer be broken: hurt people end up hurting people.
Maggie brought his head back around by gently lifting his hand from the table. "But I owe you an explanation. It'll be good for the both of us."
"You don't have to talk about it," Richie mumbled, pitching his voice to a low plane.
"Yes I do," she persisted. "I need you to understand why things happened the way they did. Where we went, and what he did, and why I couldn't have done anything sooner."
Richie was completely indifferent to the idea of actually following through with the information he had been seeking. A part of him didn't want to know. His reach for air was shallow, knotting around the feelings in his stomach and making him feel sick. "Was it New York?" He inquired, recalling Castro's murmurs into the Walkie Talkie.
His mother lifted her chin. "A really bad neighborhood in New York. Lots of gross people doing gross things. He's been doing gross things from the moment he showed up on our doorstep." She paused for an extended second, relaxing her eyes into his and letting the silence fill the air. "Do you know what extortion is, Richie?" Maggie finally asked.
The question sobered his attitude, but his tension stayed regardless. "Kind of. I guess so. Isn't it like... robbery or something?" He guessed, clearly uneasy.
"Through force or threats," she added with a nod. "Serious threats. Threats that can hurt people."
Richie tried to push down the ideas that were starting to rise up in his mind. He decided he'd heard enough, cutting her off when he nervously tucked the tip of his thumb between his teeth. He had never been a nail biter, but he just couldn't hear anymore about his father's wrongdoings. Not today. Today had been a lot: his first kiss with Elle, hearing her speak those perfect words that made him complete, being ushered into the back of a police car, meeting with his mother again, and now having every suspicion surging in his mind confirmed. It would take some time to slide into all the details. He was healing, but the scars were still fresh.
Nonetheless, he was still rightfully concerned. "And so you just... stayed behind while all of this was happening? You were safe, right? Why did he take you with him?"
"I had no part in it. At all. I stayed behind and stayed quiet just as he told me to. That's the thing about your father, Rich. He's manipulative, and controlling, and frightening, and-"
"I get it mama," Richie interrupted, seeing the trauma begin to show itself to her. He ran the beds of his fingers across her hands. "I really do. He's a..." his mouth moved to let out an obscenity, but he knew she wouldn't approve. "He's a terrible person."
The recovery process ahead of them wasn't going to be easy, and they were both aware of that. This was something that would require years of therapy and nights of bad dreams. Healing is a process that's never ending. Scars continue fade throughout your entire lifetime even after the skin has been marked forever. Sometimes they appear darker than others, but the most important thing is that they're closed.
While they were on the topic of admitting things, he decided to use this time to his advantage.
"What about Oscar Bowers? The affair?" Richie interrogated.
Maggie's expression went tense, like she was hoping he would've forgotten about that. Shame clouded around her face and embarrassment swept into her cheeks. "Oh God, you remember that?"
Richie gave her an obvious look that said, 'It's kind of hard to forget when Henry sure as fuck hasn't.'
Accepting the fault, Maggie lowered her shoulders and didn't even bother averting her gaze. There were things she wasn't proud of, and this was definitely one of them. She had to own it. "I'm sorry about that," she admitted lowly. "I mean I'm really sorry about that. That was an ignorant move. You play stupid games and you win stupid prizes, I guess. That was stupid of me and it only put us in more danger."
"Why did you do it, though?" Richie moved forward in his seat.
He watched every emotion that he was all too familiar with fight to show themselves on her features: shame, discomposure, humiliation, and regret. "To feel loved, I guess," she shrugged.
Richie only sat there in an intertwine of shock and wonder. He was as silent as stone, blinking distantly and feeling as though the floor was about to fall through.
"But hey," Maggie found her ground of peace, rekindling her firm grip around her sons hands. "You find someone who makes you feel like that, and you hold onto them. Okay? Hold onto them. Don't follow my lead. Find someone who shows you what love feels like and swear to be over dramatic and true to them. Understand?"
He was paralyzed by his own feelings, rocking his head up and down but not exactly realizing what he was agreeing with. His heart dared to hope that he could hold onto Elle. If only she could hold onto him, too.
"Understand."
After some time, Richie gathered enough courage to return back to the subject of his father. He didn't want to, and he would've preferred burning in hell over knowing the answer, but he had to. Just for one question.
"Hey mom?" He pulled for her attention, feeling his blood quicken.
Maggie drew closer, her eyelids slightly leaving space between themselves. "Yes?"
Richie became captivated by stillness. Every word he could possibly utter was locked away into forbidden territory. He shifted glances around the room, eventually adjusting his posture and looking directly at her. "Did my dad ever... uh..."
The words failed to come to him. Maggie crossed her legs in front of her, making herself comfortable in case this took awhile. Anxiety rolled over him in dangerous waves that would wash him up on the shore, cold and stolen of any heat from his skin.
"Did my dad ever, you know..." he drew out the sentence. To requite his loss of words, Richie made a gesture towards his throat as if someone was moving a knife back and forth.
An engaging smile slid up her face, clearly amused at her sons depiction of the question. A familiar laugh spun in the air, as beautiful as he remembered it to be. Just as it was on Spring days in the park. "No, Richie. Your father didn't kill anyone," she shook her head in silent laughter, coming down from her joy. She missed classic functions like this -- his unique ways of behaving.
Richie felt insecurity creep into him in response because he was totally serious and wasn't able to convey that, but he was happy to see her smile, so he left it.
"I really missed you, kid," she expressed after fully collecting herself.
Richie glanced at her curiously, "But I never left."
"And I never should have."
It took a while, but he eventually let a sweet smile guide his lips and touch his eyes. This was what it felt like to be free. To be soaring above whatever was left on earth after you lit a match and set fire to the world. Above every breath of smoke, diving into sapphire blue while your past burned into ashes. This is what it was like to fly.
Maggie began smoothing the fabric of her outfit, preparing to rise from her seat after leaving one last proposition. "What do you say we get out of here and head to the park. Maybe have some lunch under a Willow tree. You know, for old time's sake," she flashed a celestial grin.
["You're driving me crazy, Rich! Can't even hear myself think ," she joked eloquently. "How about we go to the park? You can be as loud as you'd like."
When Richie's small face looked up at her, she was wholesomely beaming. A true luminosity radiated through her smiling lips. "I'll pack your favorite."]
His chest had risen and fallen again with each heavy breath. Happiness was hitting him at a speed that surrendered to bliss, nearly making him jump with excitement. He nodded assuredly and pulled to his feet. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd love that. Let's head out."
So they followed, one after the other, catching up on years worth of events in a simple picnic set in the middle of oncoming summer magnolias. The sun was brighter than it had ever been on one of these occasions. They spoke of the upcoming graduation and how his grades had earned him a top spot in his class, so she'd ruffle his curls as if he was still 4 years old while letting him know how proud she was. He mentioned the game they used to play where she would guess the animal he was pretending to be. She finally admitted that she loved getting a rise out of him by purposefully guessing the wrong ones, but of course he always knew that when reflecting back on the days that were so hard to reach at the time. Additionally, he'd tell her that he had found the person who makes him feel loved; the girl who was worth holding onto. And he would have to tell her that he couldn't.