Domesticated?
He'd laughed it off when Sam had suggested it. He was not domesticated, not even close. The whole idea of it was absurd.
Except maybe it wasn't.
The house meant something to him…much more than he would ever want to admit, even to himself.
Four walls and a roof…that was what he had said to Sam…but it wasn't true. It was so much more than that. It was the one place he'd felt safe in as a child…the one place where he had felt like people had genuinely cared about him. He liked living here. He liked this neighborhood. He felt a part of it. He cared about Mrs. Ramirez and he had to admit he enjoyed the way she baked him treats and fussed over him sometimes. In turn, he would listen to her talk about her day, put out her trash or help her bring in her groceries. He assumed it was the kind of relationship a person might have with someone in their family, perhaps like a grandmother.
Except he'd never had the chance to know either of his true grandmothers, or any relatives at all for that matter.
Sure he had Hetty, but she wasn't really the type to fuss over him, except maybe for a chat over a cup of tea. And now he had a father, a sister and a nephew, but he knew he was backing away from getting to know them. He hadn't even told his sister who he was. Sam thought he was trying to protect them, but he wasn't really sure if that was the reason why. It wasn't something he was ready to think about.
Not now…not yet...
The house contained memories…the only true happy childhood memories he'd ever had. The only memories that could even begin to help block out some of the horrors of his childhood…
A day on the beach in Romania where his mother had been murdered…
The time when he'd been locked in a closet because he'd been ill and his foster mother didn't want to deal with him…
The night when his drunken foster father had thrown him down a flight of stairs…
Or the times when he had been beaten or verbally abused for really no reason at all…
These weren't the kind of things he could ever talk about, not even to Sam, but they were there, buried deep inside him and he only dared to let them out on very rare occasions, afraid of what they could do to him if he let them out too often or even worse, if he allowed them to be exposed to anyone else.
He knew that people got attached to places and things…but he had never been that person. It wasn't something that he would ever do.
Except he had.
He didn't want to return to a life of living in short term rentals and crummy motels, with no belongings, no roots.
He loved this house. It was his home. The first real home he'd ever had. He had never felt as settled as he did here, not even when he had lived with Hetty.
It was four walls and a roof, but it was his four walls and a roof.
It hurt just thinking about having to give it up.
So yeah…maybe Sam was right…maybe he was domesticated.