Hey, Blue

11 - Tension

Marley opened the little red mailbox at the front of the property to find a small pile of letters and junk mail that had accumulated over the past week. He pulled it out, and as he walked back into the house, he thumbed over the envelopes to find which ones were his, which could be tossed, and which he would need to set on the counter for Emrys to get to whenever he had a moment.

Three envelopes down, a letter from his parents sat. He paused at the front door, his foot pushed in between the door and the wall, holding it open. They hadn't sent one, not in months. He stepped inside and shut the door behind him with his hip.

His gaze lingered on it, on the way the edges were crumpled and the ink from the return address had started to smudge. He moved into the kitchen, setting the rest of the mail down in a neat pile on the counter, but the letter from his parents stayed in his grip. It felt heavier than it should.

For a moment, he considered tossing it into the trash along with the junk mail. It would have been easy, wouldn't it? Out of sight, out of mind.

He didn't want to open it. Not really. But he knew he would.

Marley debated with himself.

What would it say this time? He pressed his thumb under the seal, and the paper parted with a small tear. Another apology? No, they wouldn't do that. More vague, unnecessary pleasantries? His parents were never exactly the pleasant type.

He hadn't spoken to them in ages. He hadn't seen them in person either, always afraid they'd trap him within those small, hollow, familiar walls. He didn't really see a reason to.

It wasn't like they were bad. Some of his friends had drawn much worse cards when it came to parents.

But they weren't good either. He didn't think they had ever tried to be. They just threw everything on someone else—usually him—and refused to take the blame. As if it were his duty, as the eldest son, to bear the burden of their recklessness.

Marley sighed, closing his eyes and running a finger over the envelope.

What was the point of reading it, really? They never thanked him for all the things he did for them—making meals, cleaning up after tantrums, picking out clothes for school. Never acknowledged the weight they'd placed on his shoulders while they were off working to pay for the messes they'd gotten themselves into.

He didn't think he'd ever forgiven them for that. And, honestly, he didn't think he should have to.

The envelope is beneath his thumb, and opens. He pulls the letter out.

It's written on lined-sheet parchment, a single sheet, with a tear in the corner. It was the paper he used for school, the type he knew his siblings were using now, most likely. The paper crinkled as he unfolded it, revealing neat but indifferent handwriting– His mothers.

His eyes hovered the first line, and he bit his lip as he read it.

Marley turned the letter over in his hands, the familiar weight of it sinking into his palms. The greeting, as usual, was distant and impersonal—"Marley," scrawled hastily across the top. After the obligatory "How are you?" there was barely a line of pleasantries before it slipped, predictably, into complaints. This time, it was about his siblings—their behaviour, the chaos that came with managing them, the never-ending disorder that seemed to flourish in his absence.

Nothing new, he supposed. It was always like this.

His parents had written in the same tone since the day he'd left for private school at eleven. Every letter, every strained conversation, always circled back to the same underlying point: how much harder things were without him. How his siblings were more difficult, the house was more chaotic, life was just... worse. They never outright said it, of course, but the meaning was always clear. Marley was the glue that had held their household together, and without him, everything unravelled into disarray.