Chapter 10: You're On Your Own, Kid

SEBASTIAN

Sebastian's heavy breathing, coupled with the rhythmic sound of Sebastian's feet making contact with the pavement as he ran, was his soundtrack on Sunday morning. He had forgotten his earbuds at home, meaning that he was alone with his thoughts for the time being, and he had many. So many, in fact, that his run became longer than usual– he ran around their neighborhood, across town, past McKinley, and was now on his way back home– solely in an attempt to clear his head.

His grand idea for the summer had been to utilize this free time to reset and relax ahead of his senior year. The Academy had caused him so much stress over the last few months that it was beginning to materialize– he swore that he was beginning to get wrinkles between his eyes and on his forehead. Artie had taken to teasing him, saying that the couch was going to mold to his form if he spent any longer sitting there and watching TV, but Sebastian felt that it wasn't entirely his fault. With the absence of his daily hour-and-a-half commute one way to Dalton, he wasn't sure what else to do with all of the free time he suddenly found himself with. Sebastian didn't think of himself to be all that spiritual or superstitious of a guy, but he still knew what is said about idle hands.

Now, after only two weeks of summer break, Sebastian could finally recognize that what he's been feeling is a combination of boredom and loneliness.

Living so far away from his school also meant that all of his friends lived far away too. The long distance, in addition to everyone's individual schedules, meant that he didn't get to see them all that often when they didn't have mandatory pre-planned Warbler activities. And, of course, his dad didn't have a summer break, so he and Nancy usually spent each weekday at the firm, from early in the morning until dinnertime.

Then there were the weekends. Sebastian loathed weekends the most.

Weekends were when the Abrams kids shipped out to their dad's house. Sometimes they didn't, if their dad was busy, or, if one of the three kids had their own plans in Lima over the weekend, that one would hang back while the others headed east to Akron. Since Sebastian had moved in last year, times when all three of them headed to their dad's together were rare, but when it happened, Sebastian dreaded it.

Each week when Friday rolled around, Sebastian secretly hoped for something to come up that would force the kids to stay back in Lima. He knew what a selfish and horrible thought that was to have, but as someone with only one living parent, he couldn't help but be a little jealous that the three of them got to spend time with the parent that they didn't primarily live with when he didn't get to.

He'd spent his whole childhood on his own, and yet, now that Sebastian had gotten a taste of having siblings, he didn't remember how to handle being on his own. It was like everything he knew and loved about his present life had just been ripped away and he was left with only the silence of an empty house. That hurt even more than the loneliness in the first place. He often found himself counting down the minutes until dinnertime on Sundays– when Griffin, Artie, and Ella would inevitably return.

In the meantime, the solution that Sebastian had settled on was whenever he felt these sinking feelings of loneliness encroaching upon him, he turned to some sort of exercise. He firmly believed– as most WASP-types did– that partaking in physical activity could heal any affliction. Running had become his newest form of therapy.

As Sebastian continued to jog, approaching his neighborhood now, he began to think that he needed a boredom buster. Maybe he should take Sam up on his suggestion to get a job at that ice cream place. It couldn't be the worst thing in the world, right? All of his Warbler friends were busy for the most part– with jobs of their own or family vacations– until Warbler Camp at the end of the summer. His siblings had been keeping pretty busy too. Griffin was spending his summer doing unpaid intern work at the firm. Artie didn't actually have to work, thanks to the monthly disability checks he received in the mail, but he'd already begun researching colleges he intended on applying to, and he was spending whatever free time he had after that with Quinn. Ella still wasn't old enough to get a job of her own, but summer captain's practices for the Cheerios had already begun. Sebastian had to keep himself occupied, too. Truthfully, he had never even considered getting a job, since his credit card was hooked up to his dad's account and he never really had to ask for money in the first place. As he ran, though, Sebastian started thinking that it may be nice to have a little extra spending money of his own. Plus, he'd like to get to know Sam a little bit better. Maybe he'd text him about the job later.

When he returned to the driveway, Sebastian finally came to a stop. He pushed the button on the Fitbit he wore on his wrist to end the tracking of his workout, and grabbed himself a water bottle out of the spare refrigerator in the garage before heading inside.

"There you are!" Sebastian's father Harrison greeted him upon his entrance to the kitchen. "I was wondering where you went off to, but now I see that you're staying in shape for next year's lacrosse season! Great idea!"

Sebastian firmly pressed his lips together and gave a curt nod. After receiving praise from his father, Seb didn't have the heart to admit that he hadn't gone running with lacrosse in mind.

"Have a nice time?"

Sebastian nodded again, twisting off the cap of his water bottle and taking a sip to rehydrate himself after the morning he'd had.

"Where'd you run off to? You were gone for quite a while."

"I kind of went all over," Sebastian admitted. "Started off around here, then went up by the high school and took the long way back."

He knew his face was undoubtedly flushed, and he could feel that the athletic headband he'd worn around his forehead to keep his hair out of his eyes was damp with sweat. In all honesty, his run had made him kind of gross, and he hadn't counted on being ambushed with questions the second he walked in the door.

"Here in town, there's this hiking trail I like to walk in the summer when I get a chance," Nancy told him. "It's very peaceful. I can show it to you sometime if you'd like."

"Yeah, maybe," he replied with an indifferent shrug. Sebastian wasn't much of a hiker, but he didn't know how to tell his well-meaning step-mother that. Especially because… he admittedly didn't know her all that well.

He'd spent quite a bit of time and effort getting to know each of his new step-siblings, but Sebastian had (accidentally) kind of neglected the task of doing so with his new step-mother. There hadn't been much of an opportunity, since Sebastian and his father had moved to Lima last December, for him to spend meaningful, individual time with her. Not to mention that, for eight years now, he hadn't had a mother figure in his life, and he didn't really know how to interact with one.

"Hey, Sebastian," Nancy called a moment later, getting his attention again just as he'd turned to head upstairs. "I've been wanting to update the decor and furniture in the living room for a while now, and I want to run some errands in Columbus this afternoon to get some inspiration… I could use an extra opinion, if you're interested and want to get out of the house," she offered with a hopeful smile. "We can grab some lunch afterward, too."

Sebastian was momentarily stunned by the offer.

"Okay," he replied, shocking himself further by accepting it. "I just have to, uh, shower and everything, but sure. I'll go with you."

"Great!" Nancy told him. "Come down whenever you're ready and we'll head out."

Sebastian nodded. He was a little surprised to find that he was uncharacteristically nervous about what the day out with his step-mother would entail, but for the first time that summer, he felt excited to have something on his schedule.

…

Nancy and Sebastian visited a bunch of furniture stores and interior design showrooms in the city that afternoon before breaking for a late lunch at a nice Italian place.

Sebastian had ordered just plain buttered noodles, as the only other pasta dish on the menu had some sort of meat sauce, and he would not be eating that. The texture weirded him out, as many foods tended to do. He preferred everything plain, plain, plain. Plain cheese pizza, plain chicken fingers, and plain buttered pasta were staples in his diet. Even when he'd lived in Europe and had been surrounded by some of the most diverse and incredible foods in the world, he hadn't strayed far from his basic line of 'safe foods'. He knew that he had the palate of a toddler, but he didn't care.

"What did you think about the couches we saw?" Nancy asked him over the table, pulling out a few upholstery swatches that she'd collected over the course of their day and the pictures she'd taken of the sectionals they'd seen. "I think the beige is my favorite, but the dark grey is nice too."

"I like the beige," Sebastian replied. "Because the couch we already have is a dark color. This way, we're changing it up, and we can find some other decor pieces that are lighter colors, too, so we can brighten up the space a bit."

"My ex-husband and I picked out the dark-colored couch back when the kids were little," Nancy shared. "We didn't want their dirty little hands to stain any of the furniture. But now that everyone's older, I agree, I think the lighter colors look better. The beige it is, then," Nancy told him definitively, tucking the swatches back into her purse. "I'm sold. Thanks for being my helper today."

"No problem," he told her, pleased he was able to be of assistance. "I like this kind of stuff. My dad gave me pretty much free reign when we decorated our old house in Marion, back when we first moved to Ohio."

"He did, did he?" Nancy asked, clearly impressed and intrigued with a ten-year-old being given so much say in the interior decoration of the home. "How did that go down?"

"I was pretty young, but I've always found it to be kind of fun, I guess," Seb said. "And, my dad, he didn't know anything about any of that– that had always kind of been my mother's specialty– so he bought me the homemaking magazines from the checkout aisle at the supermarket and really let me go to town."

Nancy gave him a small, understanding nod when he brought up his mother. She didn't seem hung up on the fact that he'd brought her up, nor did she seem bothered by it in any way.

"Well, I take it that it was a good idea to invite you to come along then," Nancy told him with a smile. "I had a feeling that you'd be able to point me in the right direction. This was the perfect weekend to get a start on furniture shopping since the other kids didn't have any plans around here and our weekend was pretty free."

Nancy talked about her kids a lot, Sebastian noticed. That was fine, though, because Seb could talk about them, too. They were, after all, about the only thing they had in common. Besides his dad.

"I'll bet Artie has a good eye for this kind of stuff," Sebastian said. "With him being a director and all that. He told me all about the decisions he had to make back when he directed West Side Story. He said directors need to have opinions on everything. Even the stuff he had no idea about, he just faked it and pretended he knew what he was doing. I bet he could put in some good input, too."

"You're probably right about that," Nancy nodded with a knowing smile. "He does tend to be very particular about certain things, doesn't he?"

She paused thoughtfully just then, and Sebastian used the slightly-awkward moment between them to glance down and move his pasta around the plate with his fork.

"Maybe it's just my instincts as a mom, but I can see that you get a little down whenever the kids are gone."

Sebastian looked back up at her with his eyes wide. Was he really that easy to read? That even his new step-mom was able to tell that he'd been kind of moping around that weekend? He had hoped that he was significantly better at hiding his inner emotions than Artie was. Now, he wasn't so sure.

"I feel that way too," she quickly assured him when she saw the stunned expression he was wearing. "It's been almost eight years that we've been doing this arrangement, but it hasn't gotten any easier whenever I don't get to see the three of them every day."

Sebastian looked down at his meal again, swallowing hard, and when he couldn't bring himself to formulate a response, Nancy kept talking.

"I'm glad you and the kids are getting along so well. I think Ella really likes you. Artie, as well. I was worried there, in the beginning, when you two weren't talking to one another all that much."

This got a half-smirk out of Sebastian. That feud seemed so ridiculous, looking back on it.

"Yeah, things are better now. We, uh, realized it wouldn't do either of us any good to hold grudges. Not when we're in it for the long haul now."

"You know, when the kids were growing up, I used to do days like this with each of them," Nancy shared. "Little one-on-one days spent together. It's hard, as a parent, to feel like you're giving each of them the amount of attention that they need. I haven't always been the best about that– especially in the first years following the accident– but I've tried to get better. I'm glad that I get to carry this tradition on now, with my newest son."

The wary expression on her face showed that Nancy knew she'd taken a risk when referring to Sebastian as her son like that when he had a mother of his own. He knew what she meant, though, and didn't dwell on it. He felt the same way– excited about having the opportunity to spend some time with her and get to know her better.

"Well, every day was a one-on-one day when I was growing up," Sebastian joked, attempting to lighten the mood a bit from underneath the slight blanket of awkwardness that had just settled. "My mom didn't have any choice but to dote on me. That's probably why I ended up being so needy."

Sebastian bit the inside of his cheek just then, as he contemplated saying what he wanted to say next. He decided to just go for it.

"I think she really would have liked you. My mom."

Nancy gave him a small but grateful smile, reaching across the table to place a comforting hand on his arm.

"That's very nice of you to say, Sebastian, thank you. I'd love to know more about her, if you're up to sharing," she encouraged. "Your dad doesn't talk about her much, but I've always wondered what she was like."

Sebastian had always kind of wondered how much (or how little) Nancy knew about his mom. His father didn't bring her up a lot, since the topic made him so sad, and, historically, Sebastian had been the same way. Seb knew that his dad had a picture of his late wife on his bedside table in the room he shared with his new wife and that he had an old photo of their family in his office at work, but other than that, Sebastian couldn't have been sure.

Up until a few months ago, this would have been an impossible ask, for him to talk openly about his mom. It was just like Artie's accident, or like Voldemort– it wasn't something people talked about, if they could help it. Sebastian had stuffed those memories and their corresponding emotions down deep inside of himself. He knew, however, that there was always a chance that something could happen that would cause him to begin missing his mom, and it would all come flooding back. For years, he had long preferred feeling like a numb, shell of a human being rather than bursting into tears at just the mention of her.

He'd made some progress since then, though. After opening up to the siblings in the spring, he'd taken Artie's advice to talk about her more instead of pushing those memories away. Artie had also stayed true to his word, remaining an excellent listening ear whenever Sebastian needed him to be. He still had a long way to go, but over time Sebastian had started to become more open to sharing about the incredible person his mother was and all that she meant to him.

"Well, her studio was on the first floor of our house, so I hung out there a lot with her. I always wanted to be around her, just sitting at her feet as she worked," Seb began. "She was always so glamorous. Even when I was little, I could see that. I wanted to be just like her when I grew up. A designer, or maybe just a step above everyone else, I don't know. And whenever I had a bad dream, I remember that she would always sing me these French lullabies that her mother had sung to her when she was little, and she'd rub my back and then I'd go back to sleep."

For the first time that he could remember, recalling these memories was a pleasant experience for him. Focusing more on the bountiful happy memories that he had of his mom– rather than the few sad ones that tended to stick out– was what made all the difference. Once Sebastian got started talking about her, he couldn't bring himself to stop. The twinkle in Nancy's eye encouraged him to continue.

"She was a lot more strict than my dad, but I never cared about any of that. She'd be the one making sure I was at my tennis lessons on time, and that I practiced piano, but she would also be the first to cave whenever I begged for ice cream every night." Sebastian let the smile he had been wearing fade as he came back down to Earth and faced reality. "She was the best. I really miss her."

"Thank you for sharing that with me, Sebastian," Nancy told him sincerely. "She sounds wonderful. And I'm sure you've heard this before, but she would be so proud of the man you've become."

"I don't know about that," Sebastian confessed, feeling his eyes becoming watery. He glanced away, embarrassed by the sudden onset of emotion. He didn't want to start crying in the restaurant, so he willed himself to knock it off. "I don't know that she'd be too proud of some of my actions from the past year."

"She'd still be proud of you, no matter what," Nancy insisted, giving his hand a squeeze, causing Sebastian to force himself to meet her eyes. "Believe me, as a mom, I know. We're always proud of our kids. Always."

While it felt good to share this part of his mother with someone, it didn't change the fact that Sebastian had never broached this subject before with Nancy, the new mother figure in his life. It made him feel awkward, as if he was supposed to be picking a side between the two of them. Luckily, though, it seemed that Nancy was able to read his mind– and she didn't feel the same way.

"I don't want you to see me as someone who is replacing your mom," Nancy assured him as she signed the check that the waiter had dropped off on the table while Sebastian had been talking. "I know how much she means to you and your dad, and while I love you like you're my own son, I could never take the place that your mom holds in your life. I want you to know that I'll never try to do that, okay?"

A rare loss for words seemed to find Sebastian at that moment, so he just sniffled and nodded.

That was the perfect thing for her to have said; to make it clear that she considered Sebastian as one of her own and would love him as such, but didn't expect for him to think of her in the same kind of way. The events of today had been such a special gift that she'd given him, and he wasn't even sure that she was aware of how much hearing those words had meant to him. He'd hold today in his heart forever.

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Thank you to FF user GGbaq for suggesting a chapter about Sebastian's relationship with Nancy! I hope all of you readers out there have enjoyed the first 10 chapters of this story. If you have, please leave me a review!