Rêveuse

Chapter 20.

August 2024

My mom almost ran up to me when I got off the train with my bags and she hugged me tight enough to wonder if the pressure could make my eyes pop out. She kept swearing at me while she hugged me, which was confusing to everyone around us who could hear her telling me that I am utterly insane and I have given her a great deal of stress. Which I could understand.

Dad hugged me and gave me a quick 'good to have you back' thing before we walked to the car and drove home. My mom clearly had a lot she wanted to say to me, but she kept quiet during the drive home and tried to just be happy that I was back. Which I don't doubt she was, I just knew she wanted to scream her head off at me first.

I didn't exactly expect to come home and get greeted by warm hugs and happy smiles like what I hadn't done hadn't impacted my parents. But I also felt that she shouldn't get to tell me what I can do and don't do when I'm a full grown adult. For the first time in a long time I just wanted to do something for myself, something to help myself heal and find some happiness again, something that made living seem a little bit more bearable. But everytime I do something for myself, people always seem to think I'm selfish. I guess that's what happens when living for other people becomes the norm.

We made it home and I immediately took my bag upstairs. I realized when I dropped my suitcase on the floor and looked around that I had made the decision to stay in my childhood room whenever I'm home. I don't have an apartment to stay in, and I made that decision without thinking much of it. But I was standing there, looking around the room that my parents had made look the same as when I lived there ten years earlier.

I sighed and then I started unpacking, taking everything into the laundry room to get it all washed. I got all the little souvenirs and placed them on my shelf. I took all the disposable cameras and I put them in a box so I could take them someplace to be developed. I tried to make my room feel as homey and comfortable as I could, but it still felt cold and gray even though the room had plenty of colors in it.

It's a haunting feeling, standing in there. Chills ran up my spine at the thought of a younger version of myself running around the house. I had been there before, and I knew the place inside and out. Jules, who had been gone so long, had walked through there and used to be on the other side of the wall. It all felt like a different life. Yet, the house felt so unfamiliar.

I grabbed the box full of cameras, and I walked out of my room and closed it behind me. I didn't like it. It always feels like Jules should be coming around a corner, or walking through a door. But the fact is that we don't even know what he would look like if he was here. I'm getting closer and closer in age to him, and Charles is now older than Jules ever got to be.

I came downstairs just as someone knocked on the door. My mom had her hands into a bowl of marinade and Dad was outside lighting the grill, so I went to open the door and saw Pascale, which made me light up as quickly as she did as she walked into the house with the biggest smile on her face, reaching her hands out to cup my cheeks.

"Tu es de retour," You're back, she exclaimed happily. "Tu nous as tellement manqué..." We missed you so much.

"Tu m'as manqué aussi," I missed you too, I replied as I hugged her.

I followed her into the kitchen and I watched them kiss each other's cheeks and listened to Pascale ask my mom if it's nice having me back home. Mom nodded with a laugh and jokes about how she wished I wouldn't have left to begin with. Bless Pascale for pointing out that she should just be happy I made it back in one bit.

"Maman, je vais juste les faire développer," Mom, I'm just going to go get these developed, I said and held up the box with cameras.

Mom stared between me and the box as her shoulders fell, "Tu viens de rentrer à la maison," You just came home, she pointed out.