Hello! My one word is: luminescent
“Wow,” was Seb’s awed whisper, eyes huge and disbelieving as they were transfixed on the ceiling of his bedroom. “They’re really pretty daddy, just like real stars!”
“You like them?” Robert asked, unable to keep the smile off his face at his son’s excitement and pure joy. He watched the rapture spread across his freckled face out of the corner of his eye, the way his cheeks flushed pink when he smiled, all round cheeks and dimples. Like Aaron, he thought absently. To think he’d believed he’d never get to see him like this, that he’d be absent from his son’s happiness his entire life...
No. He didn’t want to think about that right now.
They both lay flat on their backs on the carpet in the middle of the room, all the lights off and the curtains drawn, staring up at the dark blue ceiling that glowed with a hundred and one stars, dozens of them of all shapes and sizes, lighting up the space above them like the real night sky. It was just as wondrous as the real thing, to both father and son alike; Seb because he had an insatiable desire to know things and a thirst for the universe around him, and Robert because it gave him a reason to feel safe and secure in an otherwise oppressive darkness, both literal and metaphorical - outside, in the natural world, and inside, in the black recesses of his own mind.
“Yeah! ‘Cept now I can see them all the time and not just when the sky isn’t dirty,” Seb said. “Did you see the stars a lot when you had to go away?”
Robert swallowed hard; he thought carefully before replying. “No,” he said eventually. “No, I didn’t, mate.”
Seb rolled onto his side, facing him, his mouth turned down sadly. “Da said being away made you really sad.”
Robert nodded, words sticking in his throat, and he forced down the lump that rose at the back of it, the corners of his eyes stinging. “Yeah. Yeah, it did.”
“Cause you missed me and Da?” Seb asked, crawling up next to Robert. One little arm stretched across his stomach, fingers curling into his jumper, and Seb put his cheek to rest against his chest just over Robert’s heart. He could smell the shampoo Aaron used to wash Seb’s hair in the bath. It smelled like apples and oranges. His breath was sweet, like jam. “We missed you a lot.”
“I never stopped thinking about ya,” Robert said earnestly, wrapping an arm around Seb’s shoulders, fingers teasing the soft auburn tendrils of his hair. “Or your dad. Every day, nearly, sometimes more than that, even. All the time.”
“You don’t have to be sad anymore, Daddy,” Seb murmured quietly, words half-muffled by his jumper. “You can come look at my stars any time you want, honest. I won’t even ask you for the secret password even though I ask Auntie Liv ‘cause she’s nosy.”
Robert barked out a laugh; sometimes, Seb was too perceptive - and smart - for his own good. He’d learned that in the past year or so. “Okay. I won’t tell them.”
“Special secret,” Seb yawned, stretching then curling up on himself again, like a cat, “just for me and daddy.”
“Yeah,” Robert agreed, feeling his own eyelids drooping, “me and you, always, kid.”
