you bring your mommy GF home for the holidays, and it's a little awkward. neither of you really like that you have to call her your girlfriend while there, but your parents wouldn't understand. If they'd understood you maybe you wouldn't...
It's not worth rehashing right now. You go home because you always do. Your relationship with your parents is a bit tense, but it's acceptable. and this is what people do, right? go home? you do it because you're supposed to. because they'd be upset if you didn't. because going is easier then dealing with the fallout...
they're pleasant, but interrogative. They can't stop asking questions. details, personal things of your partner that they have no right to know. you try and interfere, but you don't know how to tell them no. you never have. But she's strong. her strength, her will, is part of why you love her. she withstands their barrage with more dignity then you would've. she doesn't seem bothered. they're not the first.
That first night wears on, the alcohol getting everyone through the uneasy tension that seems to linger just out of sight. you feel small. its one thing to deal with them on your own, it's another to be witnessed. it's another to see your little home world through your partners eyes. none of it is quite what you remember anymore.
as the night winds down, the first slip finally happens. it's not you or her, but them. one of them makes a comment, something so casual and offhand that by the time the last word has left their lips they've forgotten the rest. but it lodges in your heart. it slowly creeps through you brain and traps you in a tiny cage. a pattern, a cycle present all your life, a fear you know you can't show because they couldn't understand. because they put it there. you change. you shut down. you keep talking, but there's nothing left in your voice.
they don't see it. they do, but they don't know. it's normal. it's you. it's what they know of you. it's how you react when words are said, and in their eyes it means nothing anymore. She sees it though. suddenly the person she came here with is gone and this weird, timid, joyless shell is babbling on next to her. Her hand on your back roots you again, and you fall quiet as the others talk. She winds the conversation to a close, prompts a goodnight from the room, and gently guides you back to your room.
it's changed. it's not yours anymore. if it ever was. it never really felt like your space, they were always in and out, it was really just the room where you slept. anything that was yours was hidden, tucked in the backs of drawers or shoved under your mattress. privacy was earned through subterfuge. Now that you're gone, that you've been away for years, it's just another space. an office, a den, some quiet space. it's completely different. it's exactly the same. it's just as much yours as it ever was.
she helps you undress and lays you down on the fold-out couch where your bed used to be. you can still hear them outside. the walls were always thin. you learned to cry silently. you still do. you're doing it now. she pulls the blankets over you both and holds onto you tight as you cling to her. you forgot. you forgot that this is what is was like. you knew it was bad, but the nostalgia of childhood is still powerful. you forgot how much it hurt to go home.
her hand glides gently through your hair. it traces little circles on your back and drifts back and forth across your shoulders. the lights are off, the sun is set, the world is dark. it smells like her. you cling to her as your mind begins to float through that abyss. she leans in to you. her breath is hot against your cheek. her voice soft in your ear. her whisper a bare mote above silence.
"I would've raised you better."
