Waiting On A Miracle | Post Malone

5

"Hope you bought my car back." Rich's voice hit him before he had even stepped foot through the door.  Austin raised his fingers, dangling the keys in front of Rich's face to show he wasn't empty handed. "Where you been at?"

"Went for a drive." Austin said, keeping his eyes low as he hung the keys back on the hanger near the door and began making his way through the kitchen.

"You clean?" His dad asked as he looked him up and down. He wanted to rage, he wanted to be furious that that was the first question, but he honestly couldn't blame him.

"What do you think?" He punched out, feeling like a 10 year old that was being interrogated about whether or not he'd done his homework. 

"Austin. You have lost any right to avoid answerin' these kindsa questions." Rich's voice was stern and he knew better than to try and argue with his dad at the moment. Everyone here was barely hanging on by a thread. He gave his dad one firm nod before he continued making his way to the stairs. 

"Where you been at?" His dad asked again, even firmer this time around.

"I went for a drive." Austin stated, wishing he'd had the sense to avoided his father's eyes. He let out a sigh and stopped in place at the contact. "I went and saw her."

"You think that was fair?" Rich asked pointedly.

"I didn't mean to." He responded quietly. Fuck he missed feeling like an adult, missed feeling like he was able to make his own decisions and that not every one of them were wrong.

Rich gave him a subtle head nod, indicating that his questioning was over and he was free to leave, throwing over his shoulder. "Seem to be doin a lotta things you don't mean to lately boy."

***

He'd been in his room for most of the day. He could have been down stairs helping to pack the last few items of the house, but every time he built up the courage to approach the door, another new voice would echo through, another family member he couldn't handle facing.

Only a couple more days he reminded himself, he just had to avoid everyone and keep a low profile for a couple more days before he could quietly slink away and resume his life hidden in his bunker. There he'd be safe again, safe from the judgemental eyes and whispers, the feigned empathy and unmistakable pity.

"Austin honey?" Jodie's voice was at his door before her knuckles tapped against the worn wood.

"Yeah, come in." He sat himself up on the bed, grabbing his phone and trying to figure out how to make himself look busy, like there had been a reason he'd chosen to lock himself away all day rather than help his family siphon through the remnants of the house.

As soon as the door opened he was met with a soft, warm smile. God he loved this woman. She couldn't have been more of a mom to him if she had birthed him. She closed the door behind herself and inched closer, taking a seat beside him on the bed.

"I just wanted to check and see how you are?" The motherly warmth of her tone wrapped around him like a blanket he'd been missing since he was a baby, making him feel safe and a little closer to whole again.

"I'm okay." He tried to brush off, before realising she knew him too well to believe that. "I've been better."

"I can't imagine how hard all this is for you. It's hard for all of us. None of us have done this before, we don't know what we're doing either." Her hand came up to brush away some of the unruly curls from his face as her brows furrowed with concern. "We have all missed you so damn much, your dad especially."

"You ain't gotta lie Jodie." His eyes remained focused on the navy blue carpet between his feet. Everything was still too raw for him to look at her, he knew the pain would be too much for both of them.

"Austin you have been through so much these past eighteen months, no one is ever gonna dispute that, but so has he. He's lost just as many people as you, but he didn't have any say in it."

Her words stung instantly, the insinuation that he'd had control of what happened immediately raising his defences. His eyes finally met hers, ready for the next fight. Instead, they were met with swollen eyes, red from crying, tears still rolling down her blotchy cheeks.

"I can't begin to imagine the pain y'all went through Austin and I'm not trying to say I could. But we loved that girl like a daughter and it wasn't just you she walked away from." Jodie spoke slowly, carefully, to avoid any missteps or her voice breaking completely. "I've watched your daddy cry over losing his grand baby, his son, his daughter and now his own daddy. He is torn up down there because you have been a ghost this past year and he knows that the day after tomorrow, he's gonna lose you all over again and there's nothin he can do about it."

Her words winded him completely, what she said knocked every last breath from him. He had been so focused on himself and on what he'd done to her these past twelve months that he'd almost managed to prevent himself from considering anyone else's feelings.

Guilt would often come for him, covering him like the dark grey clouds of an impending rain storm, but his guilt was centred around the damage he'd done, the pain he'd caused and how ashamed they must be of him. Now he had a whole new catalogue to add to his collection.

He had managed to convince himself that when she had left him, everyone else would follow suit if he'd given them half the chance. Locking himself away had been the only logical course of action for him to prevent the rest of his family from discarding him like the fucking trash he was. It hadn't occurred to him that they would be mourning him the way he was mourning them.

"Jodie..." He wanted to be able to offer her some kind of comfort, to assure her that he hand no plans to disappear on them again and that from here on out he would focus on trying to rebuild their relationship, but he loved her too much to lie to her face. She'd see right through it anyway.

"We're proud of you Austin, you've done so well. We're just waiting for the day that you're healed enough to come back to us." She stood from the bed and placed a kiss on his forehead before making her way from the room.

Maybe what she'd said was true, maybe he was on his way to being able to build bridges and mend fences. But he knew she was right about one thing she'd said, and in all his years hunting the supernatural, he'd never come across a ghost who was any good at construction.