Brighter Than The Stars: Book One

𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓉𝑒𝓇 𝐹𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉𝑒𝑒𝓃: 𝑅𝑒𝓊𝓃𝒾𝑜𝓃

By the time she saw her mother's car pull up in front of the house, Madeline had barely made a dent in her paper. After the first half hour, she'd been so distracted watching Elijah go through everything in clear sight in her bedroom that she'd moved them downstairs, where all but one of her roommates were hanging out, hoping for another appearance from Elijah. And once Elijah made his appearance, any hope of concentration shot out the window.

Once Madeline broke the news that her parents were nearly there, all the roommates scattered.

"Are you nervous?"

Elijah rubbed at his neck and bit his lip as he took another look out the window. "What if they're disappointed in me, M&M? What if they were picturing me doing all this big, important shit with my life, and I came up short?"

Madeline walked over to him, placing her hand against his cheek. "You left before you graduated high school, Elijah. They never had dreams of grandeur for you. All they wanted was for you to survive and start a new life that was better than the one you had, which you accomplished by leaving. All that matters to us is that we have you back."

When he pulled her against him, Elijah kissed the top of her head. "Stay close to me, okay?"

Madeline let out a soft laugh against his chest. "You'll never be rid of me now. But yes, I'll stay close. If they get too clingy or overwhelming, just give me a signal, and I'll figure something out."

The doorbell rang, and Madeline moved to leave his arms, but her parents didn't wait to be invited in.

Her father already had tears in his eyes, a rarity for the man. His body was shaking so subtly, she wouldn't have noticed if his keys weren't jingling against one another in his grasp.

Where her father had tears in his eyes, her mom had tears cascading down her face. She was the whole hot mess package, complete with snot coming from her nose, and sounding as if was about to hyperventilate.

"Elijah?"

There were tears falling from his cheeks as he stared at both her parents in awe. "Mom. Dad."

Hearing those two small words come from Elijah seemed to break both her parents. Her mother clumsily lowered herself to the ground before she fell, and her dad seemed too frozen in place to help her.

Madeline remembered that before Elijah left, he often referred to her parents as being better than his own, and how they filled the roles he seemed to so desperately need. He'd even taken their last name. But never had she heard him call them 'mom' or 'dad'.

Looking up at him, she saw Elijah tear his gaze away from her parents in the background to look at her. So much of him appeared as the child he once was. Scared, hopeful, pained.

"I'm okay, M&M," he reassured her.

Even though he was clearly emotional and slightly overwhelmed, Madeline nodded and took a step away, which was all her father needed to rush over to Elijah and wrap his arms around him.

All of her dad's own advice evaporated into nothingness as he wrapped his arms around the son he lost. "I'm looking at you, I'm touching you, and I still can't believe you're in front of me."

It was a feeling Madeline knew all too well, and was still trying to wrap her head around. She'd touched him, held him, joked with him, held conversations with him, woken up in his arms, shared a coffee, and yet there were still moments she expected reality to bulldoze through her life to tell her it'd all been a mirage of her own making.

All the times she'd seen Elijah out of the corner of her eye or heard his voice in the distance. For the first several years, she'd go running up to people, only to have her dreams dashed. It wasn't until she moved here where she'd lost all faith and could control herself from searching Elijah out when she thought she heard or saw something. It killed Madeline, knowing the times she never checked were the ones that could very well have been him.

"I thought about all of you, all the time," Elijah confessed to her dad, allowing the man to hug him as ferociously and for as long as he needed.

When her dad did finally let go, Elijah went over to her mom and picked her up off the ground, holding her in such a tight embrace that Madeline worried he'd break the small woman in half.

Her mom didn't mind. Far from it. She accepted his newfound physical strength with ease, relishing in the fact he was this close at all. "I have my baby boy back."

"Not such a baby anymore, Mary," her father noticed aloud. "Kid's built like an action star."

"As good looking as one, too," her mom added, causing Elijah to just shake his head and let out a laugh.

Though Elijah hadn't been tiny when they left, he had been scraggy. Now she felt as though she had a mighty giant in her living room. At least by comparison. Madeline had seen bigger muscles and taller stature plenty of times on the big screen. She'd even seen it in real life the one week she joined a gym her second year.

But if she were to put eighteen-year-old Elijah next to thirty-year-old Elijah, the difference would have made Madeline feel much like her dad did in that regard.

"Tell me everything I missed, sweetheart," her mom pleaded.

Elijah let the small woman go and just shook his head. "We have more than enough time for that, mom. Right now, I just want to enjoy having all my family together. Is that okay?"

Her dad chuckled, giving Elijah a soft pat on the back. "However, you want to play this thing, son. Like you said, we have plenty of time for interrogations. Just wish we had more than today, but maybe you'll come back for Thanksgiving if you're feeling up to it. If not, I'm sure we can arrange for a holiday get-together around here."

Despite speaking to her parents about the upcoming holiday only yesterday morning, it'd completely slipped her mind. Thanksgiving was always a big to-do with her family. Both sets of grandparents, her mom's sister, along with her husband and their two children, who were a few years older than herself, her dad's brother and sister. The event would likely be a bit much. The only time Elijah was ever around any of those people in his youth was for holidays.

"I honestly forgot that was coming up," Elijah admitted, before giving them all a smile. "But that sounds good. Maddie and I can go down there together and make a long weekend of it. It'll give me a chance to contact my aunt to see if anyone knows what's going on with the house."

'The House Of Hell', they'd referred to it as. It pained them all to continue living next to it, and her family had thought about just moving to the other side of the neighborhood to get away from Harrison Fox.

"As far as this weekend goes," Elijah continued, "I know Maddie has some school work to finish. I want to spend today with everyone, but if the two of you wanted to crash at my apartment tonight, the three of us could spend a few hours together tomorrow, so Maddie can do whatever she needs to do."

"Oh, honey, we don't want to put you out," her mom told him, using the ever-so-classic mother line. "We can get a hotel room for the night."

Elijah shook his head, the smile growing on his face. "It's just a one-bedroom, but you're more than welcome to it. I told Maddie I'd stay here this weekend anyhow."

"Maddie," her dad began, using his scolding voice, "I told you to give Elijah some time to ease into all this, not to kidnap him."

A laugh came out of Elijah. "That one was all me. Yesterday, she asked me to spend the night, and I offered the weekend. Maddie and I are different. Doesn't matter how much time passes, she has always been and will always be my best friend. No easing necessary."

Madeline found her way back into his arms, which seemed to be ever waiting for her, and beamed at her father in triumph or gloating. Elijah was now hers to keep, and he had no interest in space from her.