I Still Remember: Part Two

As I walk down the familiar streets, fresh from the reintegration centre, the first thing I feel isn’t freedom.
Instead, it’s the air, thinner somehow, stretched so tight it feels as if it might crack beneath my feet.

The row of houses stands tall around me, still and sharp-edged.
Every window feels like an eye.
Every silence, like a held breath.

But I keep my head down.
I’ve earned this chance, haven’t I?

And then I see it. The house.
Almost as though it has been waiting for me at the end of the drive.

Yet it’s not as I remember.
Too still.
Too quiet.

“There he is!” my mother says brightly as she meets me at the door.
Her smile is fixed tight, hands fluttering like she isn’t sure whether to hug me or not.

I give a half-smile, cracking through the stiffness in my face as I lift my head and meet her eyes.

“Come in, love. You must be tired. I’ve just put the kettle on.”

She turns and leads me through the hallway, talking too softly, about the weather, the dog, the neighbour’s new car.
None of it sticks.

My bag hangs heavy off my shoulder while my fingers brush the chipped walls.
The house is familiar, yet altered.
An empty photo frame still hangs crooked.
A dent in the plaster.
A faint stain on the carpet I don’t remember.

It looks like home — safe, in theory.

I set my bag down carefully, the sound too loud in the hush, and sit on the edge of the bed. The springs press into my back as I lie down, not painful, just there, insistent.

The room hasn’t changed, but something feels different.
The curtains hang straighter.
The carpet feels flatter.
A faint scent of something floral clings to the air,
as if someone tidied around a memory,
as if the version of me who lived here has already been packed away.

Later, at dinner, I push peas, broccoli, soft bland sides across my plate:
the kind of meal that’s recommended, light, nourishing, easy on the system.

Yet beneath it all, the smell of chicken hangs thick in the air —
rich, warm, skin crisped in the oven, the scent curling low in my chest, catching sharp at the back of my throat.

My fingers fidget in my lap.
I feel the twitch at the corner of my mouth, the faint pull behind my jaw.
I take a slow breath, swallow it down.

I press the fork harder into the peas, shovel a mouthful in, chew until it turns to paste — dry, heavy — only relieved by gulps of water sliding thickly down my throat.

My mother’s eyes flick across the table, landing on me for a moment before darting away again.
She watches me like I’m made of glass, like the wrong word, the wrong blink, might be enough to make me crack.
“It’s nice to have you back,” she says, too brightly, too quickly.

Across from me, my father says nothing.
He stares down at his food as if it’s a question he doesn’t know how to answer.
The scrape of his knife fills the silence he refuses to break.
He doesn’t look at me.
Not anymore.

“You settling in all right?” my mother asks, voice soft, aimed just left of me, as though she’s speaking to the space between us.

I nod. “Yeah.”
It’s not a lie, but it isn’t the truth either.

The air settles.
Silent now.
Only the sound of forks clinking,
chairs creaking,
the fridge humming louder than our voices.

For a second I think about saying something, just something small, enough to let them know what’s really sitting in my chest.
But when my mother turns, her face lights with that brittle smile, the one she wears when pretending everything’s fine.
I suppose it feels easier than asking the questions she’s afraid to voice.

So I swallow the words.
I smile back.

No one says it.
No one asks.
But there’s an unspoken question coiled in the air.
We don’t need words for it; somehow, we’ve become fluent in silence.

So, we eat.
We scrape our plates clean.
We trade polite nothings with the kind of forced cheer that tastes like rust.

Because if the silence breaks,
if someone says what they’re truly thinking,
then none of us will be able to pretend anymore.

I Still Remember — Complete Series

1. https://horrorobsessive.com/2025/07/27/i-still-remember-part-one/
2. https://horrorobsessive.com/2025/08/04/i-still-remember-part-two/
3. https://horrorobsessive.com/2025/08/08/i-still-remember-part-three/
4. https://horrorobsessive.com/2025/08/12/i-still-remember-part-four/
5. https://horrorobsessive.com/2025/08/16/i-still-remember-part-five/
6. https://horrorobsessive.com/2025/08/18/i-still-remember-part-six/