*CONTENT WARNING* (highlight below to view):

• themes of child/domestic abuse; homophobia

The words still burned like venom in his veins, an invisible pain to match the purple splotches already forming on his skin. Ryan closed his eyes and let his head fall back until it met the wall. He was exhausted. His arms ached, his knees felt stiff, and he was counting his heartbeats by the sharp throbbing in his head and right cheek.

He took a deep breath and held it, exhaling slowly on the fourth aching pulse under his eye, then breathed in again. If he kept his eyes closed for too long he’d begin seeing things he didn’t want to remember. But if he focused on the darkness behind his lids and took in a deep breath, he could just make out the smell of mint and stale tobacco smoke.

That was his Gram, mint oil on her wrists and cigarettes in her pocket. It had barely been a year and yet already getting harder to remember her. Ryan couldn’t remember the sound of her voice. He thought he could picture her smile, but was starting to doubt its accuracy. Only the smell of the house seemed to bring her back and he desperately needed her back.

The sound of paws scratching against hardwood lifted Ryan’s head from the wall quickly and with throbbing regret. It was a distinct, lopsided sound of three paws and a rubber sole running up stairs and down the hall.

“Hey, Tucker,” Ryan said as the Australian Sheppard rounded the corner into the room. He ran over to Ryan with intermittent hops as his hind leg moved awkwardly in its prosthetic. Tail wagging, his tongue found Ryan’s face with relentless enthusiasm.

“Alright, boy,” he said, chuckling despite himself, “where’s your Mama?”

The dog barked in reply.

“You’re gonna need to find a new hiding spot,” said a voice from the doorway. “I don’t think the new residents are going to let you sneak in here every time you decide to run away from home.”

Alex was leaning against the doorframe, curly hair piled high on the top of her head, wearing an oversized t-shirt that covered her shorts. She was referring to the bright, new “SOLD” sticker that had haphazardly been slapped across the sign out in the front yard.

Ryan looked around the room as Tucker laid down beside him, the metal braces on his bad leg grinding against the floor as he stretched it out. It was empty, the whole house was. Pops was to remain in the house after Gram died, in-home care and all living expenses managed by Ryan’s father. For whatever reason, the mortgage payments were never made. It was supposedly just a huge misunderstanding, but what difference did that make? Barely seven months after Gram was buried, the bank foreclosed on the house and Pops was moved to a nursing home.

It’s amazing how quickly an empty house begins to feel vacant. There was nothing left of Gram here, only the smell, and even that was fading.

“You never know, they might enjoy the company,” he joked, scratching Tucker’s hip along the edge of his prosthesis. The room was dark but Ryan still hid his grimace as the dog rested his head on a tender spot on his thigh. He couldn’t let Alex see him like this. “What are you doing here?”

Alex folded her arms across her chest, fixing him with a concerned stare. He didn’t need to see it to know. She often looked at him that way.

“Got a call from your mom. Wanted to know if I had heard from you.”

The floorboards groaned quietly as Alex crossed the room and sat on the floor beside him. Ryan kept his face turned away, focused on Tucker.

“Bad night?”

“Nah,” he said, throwing her a brief smile. “Just a typical Thursday night with the old man.”

“What did he say this time?”

You think I don’t see you sneaking around with that so-called friend of yours? I’m not an idiot, you sick pervert! If I ever see him around here you’ll both wish you were dead! I never should have let your mother have you, you unnatural piece of…

“Oh, you know, same old.”

“Your Gram never let him talk to you like that. She’d spit poison in his direction and offer you a cookie in the same puff of cigarette smoke.”

Ryan chuckled, the muscles in his cheek pulling painfully and cutting the sound short.

“Why doesn’t your mom say anything?”

He could still see the rage in his father’s eyes when Ryan stopped his hand from meeting his mother’s face. His grip crushed Ryan’s wrist, twisted his arm until the pain brought him to his knees. Ryan’s arms blocked most of the blows until his father finally found an opening and caught him in the face with the back of his hand.

Ryan’s entire body screamed with the memory of it, but the bruises were just a warning. It would be a couple of days before the swelling in his cheek went down enough to go out in public. It would be far longer before Ryan dared stand in his father’s way again.

His mom didn’t say anything for the same reason he never did. They were terrified.

Ryan took a deep breath again, looking for the smell of mint and tobacco smoke. Without thinking, he had walked out of his parents’ kitchen and kept walking until he found himself in front of the dark house with the FOR SALE sign in the yard. He wanted Gram’s comfort, needed her grit. But she wasn’t there.

His eyes began to burn so he squeezed them shut. He took another deep breath and held it, counting the throbbing reminders of his father’s knuckles.

Tucker shifted his weight, stretching up to lick the cut under Ryan’s eye.

“You’re a thousand times the man he’ll ever be,” Alex said, her hand closing gently around his, “because you have the courage to love.”

Ryan’s eyes blinked open as Alex rested her head on his shoulder. He squeezed her hand, turning slightly and pressing his lips to the top of her head. Closing his eyes again, he took a deep breath and let the tears fall.

He smelled the mint and tobacco.