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Anniversaries were hard.
Neil and Andrew each had a few to celebrate throughout the year. Andrew’s hit him like a train, completely shut him down depending on the anniversary. Neil even acknowledging the anniversaries was new.
He's been seeing Bee in private recently. He'd been too embarrassed to tell Andrew for some reason.
He'd had a series of nightmares that made him completely miserable. When Andrew was at work and the kids at school he called Bee and made an appointment.
It was getting easier for him to process everything.
This was his first anniversary since going to therapy.
It was his mother's death.
Normally, the faint smell of smoke that clung to Andrew made Neil feel closer to his mom. Today it made him feel miserable. He jerked out of bed and went down stairs. He sent out an email to his students: no class today.
He curled up on the couch with his stuffed dinosaur and half watched HGTV.
The dinosaur had faded and had been stitched up a few times. It had seen better days, but Neil refused to give it up. He
Andrew came downstairs with the kids not far behind. He froze when he saw Neil.
“Rabbit, what're you doing?” Andrew asked, walking across the room to him.
Neil shook his head. He could already smell the smoke. He shook his head, this time more firm.
No.
“You okay?”
He sighed his answer: No.
Andrew nodded. “Can you tell me what’s wrong.”
No.
“What do you need?”
Space, he signed.
Andrew pressed his lips together. He nods. “I’ll take the kids to school. You can call me if you need me, okay?”
Neil nods because he knows that. He feels better knowing that. He’s just so tired. He curled further into the couch as the cats slinked into the room, climbing onto his back.
The pressure on his back felt good.
He managed to wave goodbye to Ruby and Henry as they left but that was it. He couldn’t manage words, not today.
“I love you, Neil,” Andrew said, stepping out to take the kids to school.
Neil listened to the car engine start, listened to them back out of the driveway. He was alone. The house was so empty.
He wished he could go visit her tomb, something, anything. It was impossible though. Even if he made it to California, it was highly unlikely that he’d ever find the spot where he buried his mother's bones.
That was something he regretted everyday.
He closed his eyes feeling the sobs come up violently. It startled the cats off his back and into the kitchen. He watched them go through blurry vision.
He sat in the middle of the living room in complete hysterics, fingers in his mouth. He rocked back and forth.
Why did Bee suggest remembering these days, why did she want him to work through the grief. Ignoring it felt better than this-- being thirty-five and sitting on your living room floor in a fit.
He nearly threw up. He gagged but forced himself not to throw up. He curled up in a ball, shaking. He hated this.
He heard the car door shut and tried to gather himself, wiping at his tears. Of course Andrew would come back, he realized. He had an hour before he even needed to leave for practice.
He managed to get to his feet, sniffling when Andrew walked in. He froze in the doorway, watching him cautiously.
Neil, without thinking, rushed towards him. He wrapped his arms around him in a hug. Andrew held him right back, gently rubbing his back.
“It’s my mom,” Neil managed after a few minutes.
Andrew's grip tightened slightly. Not in an uncomfortable way. Just enough.
“I've been seeing Bee...she’s helping me,” Neil admits.
Andrew steps back to look at him. “Really?”
He nods.
“I'm proud of you.”
Neil’s face warms. “She said that I need to properly grieve to heal...and it's the anniversary of her death. I don't think…”
Neil flaps his hand a few times, trying to think up the right words.
“You can sign if that's easier.”
Neil shakes his head no. Even then, he wasn't sure he couldn't properly convey what he meant.
“I've never acknowledged it. I just...moved on. Pretended it never happened. I miss her.”
“She hurt you,” Andrew said quietly.
Neil nods. “I know. She's still my mom.”
Andrew just nods. Neil knows he doesn't get that, knows it's the complete opposite for him. Andrew accepts Neil’s answer anyway.
“I've never grieved her death. And Bee and I are working on it and the anniversary happens to be today and it's too much. I couldn't even be near you and the smell of cigarettes,” Neil said quietly, sniffling. “I hate that I miss her.”
Andrew dug out his cigarettes and walked into the kitchen. He threw them out.
“You took the day off?”
Neil nods.
“Why don't we go to the museum. I hear they got a new dinosaur exhibit,” he hummed. “Tri-something.”
“Triceratops? They have a triceratops?” Neil gasped, bouncing on his heels. His face lit up.
Andrew nods.
“Can we go? I wanna go! Can we?” he asked, voice growing in volume.
“Go get dressed and we’ll go.”
-
Neil tugged Andrew through the front doors of the museum and straight to the dinosaur section. And then Neil saw it.
The triceratops skeleton.
He tried his best not to bounce around too much, but he couldn't help it. He loved it.
“Triceratops are one of the few dinosaurs that didn't have feathers,” Neil said, starting to rattle off facts. “Did you know that they had anywhere between 400 and 800 teeth. People think they're related to rhinos but they aren't--the closest living relatives would still be birds. Oh! They're Ceratopsians.”
Andrew nods, looking up at the dinosaur. “It's big.”
“They're about nine feet tall. Weighed anywhere between 13,000 and 26,000 pounds.”
Andrew looked over at him. Neil could feel him watching, but couldn't take his eyes off the dino.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just like it when you're happy.”
Neil stared at the dinosaur. “You called me Rabbit earlier.”
Andrew nods. “You looked like you did in college. Ready to run. Rabbit.”
There was a pause.
“Does that bother you?”
Neil shrugged. “I'm not going to run. No matter how badly I want to. I have you, I have Henry and Ruby. I have no reason to leave.”
“Do you ever still want to? I know you have a go-bag in the closet.”
Neil looked down at the floor. “When I get nightmares. I open up the bag and look at it. Bee says old habits die hard. I feel safer knowing that I have the bag. I don't think I could ever run.”
He looks over at Andrew, managing to meet his eye. “Not from you. Not from our family.”
“Yes or no.”
“Yes.”
Andrew leans over to kiss him and feels like a kid in college again. Somehow it all still feels too good to be true.