Wooden Floorboards

Prologue

"Wait! Please, just wait. What's going on? what are you doing?"

"I have to go, at least for a while. I just need to leave." He said, throwing anything and everything he recognized to be his into a bag and slinging it haphazardly over his shoulder.

"Why?! Please stop and tell me."

The words seemed meaningless as he kept running frantically to pack his belongings, trying to leave as fast as possible. He was supposed to be gone before Jamie had even returned home. A prolonged goodbye between the two would hurt more, and he knew that.

"Was it something I did?" He asked quietly, his words falling to a whisper as Jamie was heading to the stairwell. But he stopped, his feet finally freezing. And he turned around and walked back. Back to Danny who had stopped in the doorway of their bedroom.

"It was nothing you did. This is not your fault. I can't explain, you just have to believe me that I love you." He said, holding the smaller boys face in the palm of his open hand and looking him in the eye, a serious face expertly hiding the pain that reflected Danny's perfectly. Danny's tears began to spill over as Jamie turned to walk away again, his hand falling from his cheek, leaving a chill in its place.

"Will you ever come back?" He called to the boy at the end of the stairwell. That was all he needed, to know that he would come back, to keep him grounded and able to function, able to live until he came back.

The footsteps paused again, and there was a drawn out silence that seemed to last for decades, in which the only sounds you could hear were Danny's sobs as he tried his hardest to silence them.

"I hope so."