a lesson in running away (the art of returning)

Dear Alden: the right way to be proud (and hate me all the same)

Dear Alden,

I wish I could call you dad, but there are a few reasons why I can't.

1: Real fathers don't tell you they're proud of you for being less than perfect.

2: You've hurt me more than Fintan ever could. Weird, right? But that's what a father is supposed to do. You're supposed to be worse than the villains.

3: You've loved me more than my mother was supposed to. I don't want to admit that hating me is genetic.

But it is. Hating me runs in the family, and you were exempt from that disease on account of being a Vacker.

Your pride in me is something I have never been able to match up with who I am. If I am not yours, why are you proud of me? What right do I have to take those shreds away from Fitz, away from Biana? You owe me nothing. I owe you everything.

The first time you told me you were proud of me, my father's hand was around my wrist. And he didn't feel excitement or happiness or gratitude, he felt confusion.

I'd never heard those words with my name where Fitz's was supposed to be. Something didn't quite match. Something came out wrong, and I think it was me.

You spent years looking for Sophie, hoping to find her because of what you did to Prentice— ruining his life, that is. But you never found her because she came out wrong too, didn't she? Not quite human, not quite elven. Not like what you know.

Sophie was something you had to learn. Someone you had to teach yourself about.

But you assumed that I was straight out of the textbook definition. Look for Keefe in a dictionary and I come up. Definable. Noteworthy. Disaster.

Did you know that Keefe means loved in some human languages? Being a polyglot means that I understand every language, but I don't understand a world where my name means loveable. Worthy of being cared for.

That's not a father's job, anyway. Your job is to break me down to your level and try to repair the damage when you've pieced your mind back together. Your job is to shout and shout and shout and wait for the words to get through to me. Your job is to find me where I've hidden myself and bring me back into the burning sunlight.

Find me, Alden; find who I am, what I am, what I've kept from you. Why aren't you looking? Why do you never see? I've hidden myself away. You haven't found me yet. You're not my dad.

You love learning secrets no one was supposed to tell. Here's one of mine:

You gave me the idea to run away.

I was thinking about Fitz. And I was thinking about how we met. And why we became friends. It's because no one knew where he was. He was mysterious. Gone all the time. Gone to look for Sophie in the Forbidden Cities.

Do you feel your mind shattering the more you read? I think you're better off not reading this, but that's not why I won't send it.

It's because you never tried to peel back my layers. It's because my hiding spot was too good, it's because my head records every word and plays them in a disordered line, it's because neither of us has fixed our stupid broken matching heads yet. It's because you accepted me as who I was instead of who I was throwing at you, over and over, desperate to break the glass between us. Too bad that part of me is dead now.

I think you killed him.

I cried at your planting. Sometimes I regret it.

Love,

Keefe

...

Fitz isn't there the next morning when the rest of the group comes to see if it's true that he's back.

Biana gets there first: he knows it's her by how tightly she squeezes him, crushing them together. Her hair tickles his chin, bracelets digging into his back, but it's hard for Keefe to care, to breathe as she whispers, "Missed you."

"Missed you too," Keefe says softly, and Biana releases him. Her expression switches quickly from easy relief to a hesitant question. "And I've already seen Fitz," he adds, watching her eyebrows lift.

But she steps back.

"A lot has happened since you left," Tam puts in, barbed and accusatory. Not since you've been gone. Since you left.

Sophie catches it too, forehead wrinkling. She tugs out an eyelash, and Keefe winces. "Sorry about that, by the way."

They accept his apology a bit easier than Fitz did. Then, none of them know he doesn't mean it, besides Sophie, who was there last night. Not even Biana. They don't know the tug, the pull and push of anywhere but here that keeps him running, keeps him lying, keeps him leaving everyone behind. They don't know the desperate need for change, the roiling fear, the tumbling guilt that mixes with his blood and sets it itching in his veins.

Tam and Linh probably know it least of all. They run for need rather than want. He's seen their backpacks that pack for quick escape, and he's also seen the drawers they've filled since. They want a home. He wants to leave his forever. No wonder Tam hates him. The only part of him he's ever known has been betrayal, from either side of whatever dynamic they have made for themselves.

Even now, he feels it: the monotony of his days here. Trying for solutions and knowing that all will fail. The cycle that he's found himself drawn back into against his will. This is why Fitz found him lying when he said he wanted to come back.

Keefe feels a chill set over him, and Tam's shadowy voice whispers: Keefe, we're going to have to talk sometime soon.

This is the worst part of going numb, a new kind of blindness. As he meets Tam's eyes, he can't tell whether his calm is genuine or not. He's gotten out of practice at reading expression before emotion, and he can't match them up anymore.

But he nods.

And he thinks of the letters he has stacked up, one for each of his closest friends. The ones he thought he would never have the chance to give to them because he'd never see them again.

It's worse now. Because now he has to choose to keep them piled away, written and unopened, addressed to him and him only.

Dear Biana, he thinks as she ruffles his hair and he ducks with a yelp. Sorry for wanting to forget you again. I hope I'm forgiven for coming back.