She Who Had to Face Her Fear

"Welcome home, cousin."

Those words open a gate of emotions inside me. The way Mike said those words was so different from the way my mom would say it. Or rather, my mom never did say those words, not once. Her usual greeting when I return home from the ex-house would be, "Oh, your back? I thought you would be there for good?"

But this? This was different. I could feel the warmth of his words. He was really welcoming me back, not just for show but he was real. 

I felt my tears began to fall, Mike's eyes began to widen and it looked like he was going to panic when he saw that I was crying. 

"Oh, shit! I'm sorry! Was I too much?" he worriedly asked. He was frantically wiping the tears from my eyes while trying to pacify me. It was Ducncan's touch that made me smile at my cousin. "Hey, Duncan, do you have any hankies? I don't have any and.." he gestured helplessly.