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You have been changed by time - there’s no mistake about that.
It shows in the way you walk ( run ), the way you talk ( rush through words, as if you can’t get them out fast enough, and if you don’t get them out now then you never will ) and, most importantly, in how you stand.
There’s scratches etched into the wooden door frame of your room, where once you remember standing proud and tall and beaming bright - now, in those two important years of adolescence, that same scratch barely reaches between your chest and shoulders.
You’re able to look your mother in the eyes for the first time - and you’d never thought it could be a regret, because her eyes always shone with such brightness and determination like yours; but now she’s not able to hide the way the light has dimmed, your own reflection in her hues that sparkle the same as yours.
You know what she sees when she looks at you - and it’s not what she remembers.
You’re practically a new person to her, now.
Able to wield a weapon her mind’s barely able to digest, cast Magic that means that the supplies in the First Aid Kit now sit gathering dust, gone in a span of two months rather than two hours, and not by your hands, which are scarred and nicked and so big as to be able to encompass your mother’s lower back without even trying.
Images still sit in frames on your bookshelves ( used more for toy figures than actual books ), keeping crisp and clean the memories of old. They’re too far down for your grip to reach comfortably, when you first return home, but they haven’t been moved since, except to wipe off the ever-gathering dust and then return them to their original spots.
You no longer make noise when going down the stairs. Wooden boards used to creek and groan under your weight, weeping and announcing your presence as if to make any surprise visits to the kitchen impossible. They no longer cry, and instead remain silent, as if aiding your escape from the confines of your room, which is more cramped than you ever remember it being.
You ignore the light in the living room, sometimes, the familiar lamp you remember your mother buying one year for when storms hit and the electricity went out. You ignore what sounds like muffled sobs as you linger in the hallway, shadows casting on the opposite wall, play ignorant about how you know she’s probably looking at that familiar picture that always sits on the table.
The no-longer-weeping wood helps you in your escape back up to your room - and you can’t help thinking that maybe, for once, it’s better that you stay there.
You ignore the Looks they give you upon your return; how you’re now taller than your mother and at eye level with your father, who has come to wearing glasses in the two years you’ve been gone.
You have to force yourself not to flinch as they approach you, your mother weeping and your father as distant as usual, offering only a hand on your shoulder. His fingers look smaller against your frame than they used to.
Her fingers feel warm against your cheeks, soft and almost foreign - you’re not used to this much coddling, not since early childhood. You’d gotten ahead of yourself, grown into a cocky and arrogant youth; but all that has shrunk away much like your own posture has, to the point your back is slightly hunched and your hands are almost always tucked into your pockets, now.
You greet them to tell them you’re home; but you all know it’s a lie.
You won’t be here long.
You now make coffee for three, and they showed their original surprise at that. Blinking and pausing, hesitating, both of them then remained silent and sipped at their cups, commenting on the bitterness of it without actually saying anything.
You remember your mother flinching when you’d first walked out of the bathroom without a shirt - callouses and scars exposed to the light, she had stared at you and you at her in a prolonged silence that burned. Once more she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. Said nothing, placed a hand on your cheek as if to comfort.
And then she left. That was always familiar.
Your father sits at the kitchen table reading the paper at 8 o’clock in the morning, cup of coffee seated on mahogany and his gaze on black ink against ivory pages. Your mother stands with her back to you, the sizzling sound of Sunday breakfast hitting your ears.
“Sunday roast,”
You comment as you, too, sit at the table, taking a moment to place your coffee cup on a holder, reflection rippling in the bitter surface,
“We should invite the others over.”
Just like old times.
Whether it would help to stitch this ripping relationship back together - not even you could tell.
All you’re met with is silence; and that gives you all the answer you need.
You have always been bright - but upon your return, you shine with stardust and constellations on your skin. He notices that, of course he does; he’s always been observational around you since you first arrived here.
You, in comparison to your boys, have not changed much in the year you’ve been away. You have been here for most of your maturing, from a young girl into a young woman.
And yet even when you return, you can tell things have changed. Despite not being gone half as long as your boys, you, too, have changed, in ways you cannot tell the Mayor.
You try to explain to him about all you’ve learned and all you’ve seen, because he has always been an understanding and kind person - and, in passing, he asks you if you would rather return to Radiant Garden.
Of course not, you reply, this is your home. The words crumble against your tongue like ash, almost choke you as you swallow and the sentence echoes around the room in the oncoming silence.
It feels like the biggest lie you’ve ever told.
You’ve always liked the light. Living on tropical Islands has, of course, always helped that.
You’ve been blessed with freckles that dot out constellations on your skin, have worked hard to keep a figure that you are comfortable with - and with battle and calloused fingers you have become more than you’ve ever been, slightly toned thighs and barely muscular arms.
You have heard some people refer to you as a sunflower - basking in the sun and always leaning toward it’s light.
No, you think, you are the sun - you are strong and bright and wonderful, and even if you get forced down, you will always get back up.
He sees this. It explains the dimming light in his eyes, the smile he wears that shows pride but also pain; and not being there to see you grow out of your childish wonder and into your woman’s skin.
You all share the same thoughts, as do they - ones brought on by the picture replicated twice that sits in the living room. It lingers, haunts both you and them with memories of the past.
When all of you and all of them have gathered, it’s for an attempt at an ‘outing’; something to try and break the tension, get all of you talking together.
But instead, silence reigns - and the three of you sit here and the three of them sit there with the picture sitting between, and laughter echoes in your ears as if to taunt you.
They wonder where their children of two years ago have gone; where their small babies, scratched and scathed for normal reasons, have disappeared to.
You know very well where those children have gone - you are the almost-adults that have come to replace them; in you a mature person rises, and in you a young child has drowned.