One Shot Wednesdays -Nate's 'mistake' (Patreon)

Thank you to shakespearevillain on tumblr for the prompt which they got here

Write a story about a character reminiscing about past mistakes. Perhaps they come to view those "mistakes" in a new light.

I did a bit of 'speed writing' for this where I just kept writing and didn't stop to edit. The character is one we had before on another One-Shot Wednesday: Nate Benson. This may not make entire sense to you when you read it, Reader, considering you don't have the entirety of the context of Nate's story and character but I tried to put some information further in so that it framed it a little into some context. Apologies if it's still a jumble XD Enjoy, hopefully :)

-Britt xo

It’d been three months since Nate had contacted his mother over the phone and revealed himself to be in her backyard. He’d beaten himself up the whole plane ride home about it. How could he have been so stupid?

It was going to be much friggen harder to leave his life in his current city –if he had to. Which, he’d probably have to. He’d given evidence of being in his hometown and there was a small paper trail albeit a small one that showed where he’d come from and where he’d gone back to. If someone looked hard enough, they could find him now.

Fuck.

He’d packed and unpacked his things six times over the next week after that. He’d get the urge that it was time to run and hastily grab what he could and put it into a suitcase only to throw everything back out an hour or another morning later.

He laughed hysterically at himself the third time it had happened and he considered leaving the bag packed permanently.

He’d had one: a permanent ‘got-to-go-now’ bag packed from the day he’d first arrived in this city. But over time as he’d placed down the roots that he did he had slowly taken things out of it: things he’d needed, things he’d wanted... even though he could just have easily bought new things to replace what was packed away it had just...happened slowly. With each new thing pulled from the bag he supposed he had silently and unconsciously been letting himself feel like he didn’t have to run anymore.

But that was fucking bullshit. At any moment even after all of these years his Uncle could have found him or if she’d wanted to his mother... A P.I.... He should have kept a bag packed. The point was to be ready to go at the unexpected!

And now he felt on edge knowing there was a real possibility that now he just might have to disappear again without a word and yet the idea of that angered him and disappointed him. Had he grown so attached to his life here?

The answer was an easy and simple yes.

Damn it all.

But as time passed and he tried to rationalize it all he started to calm down. If and only if he was found it was then that he would deal with the consequences.

Nate had run away from home before he’d turned twenty one. It had nothing to do with his mother or any mistreatment at home. In fact, she’d been very loving. Maybe that had been part of the problem. In fact, it was. She cared about him just like everyone else had also claimed to do. But none of them truly knew him.

See, for the majority of his teens and into adulthood Nate was secretly very selfish. All he wanted was his own life without anyone else in it where he could come and go as he pleased and no one was attached to him. He had run away to pursue that.

And maybe to escape the knowledge that he was so much like his father –only worse. His father had left and never come back too. Nate had been very changed because of that. Everyone looked to him to be responsible and be a ‘good egg’. He did not consider himself one. He didn’t fit into the mold they’d cast for him.

Nate was a self-centered, self-indulgent conman who could pickpocket your wallet or steal your heart with just a few words and a smile. He was good at it. And it made him feel good to indulge his urges to take things right from under people’s noses or to win people over to his side. Maybe that’s why he’d fit right in to his job here where he helped negotiate contracts for marketing major sports teams.

However, Nate prided himself on being up-front about his lack of affection. Anyone who met him (in his ‘new’ life after he’d escaped his hometown) knew that Nate didn’t get attached to people. He didn’t make friends, he didn’t date and he wasn’t one to hang out with anyone except himself outside of work hours or when he was out for a good time at a bar or club. He made it clear to any woman who had interest in him that he wasn’t going to pursue anything past the night they met. If they were upset with that well he moved on. His coworkers knew him to be cordial and friendly to them but they’d long since stopped trying to invite him to anything that wasn’t work related. Charlotte had come closest to anything when Nate had showed up to her barbeque once for the span of a half hour to drop off some tasty and authentic French hor d’ouvres and to converse with her in her native Parisian French for several minutes before departing. But he’d been clear that no one was to get their hopes up. And they hadn’t. They knew this was just how Nate was. Some people liked to stay extremely private. They afforded him that.

So it was difficult now to consider leaving this all behind all because he’d gotten sentimental and properly contacted his mother…

Idiot he kept calling himself. If this goes south you have yourself to blame. And no, we’re not going south although a trip to New Orleans might be some fun but it’s not a relocation.

But time went on and no one came looking for Nate. Once his unease dissipated he decided to call her again as he’d promised he’d do. And then he did it again a few weeks later.

And now, it had been three months.

To his surprise, he wasn’t nervous or angry with himself anymore. He had a closer relationship with his mother than he had in over a decade -which seemed unbelievable to his mind. He would have never, ever thought he would have reconnected with her -at least not like this. He had been fine with his cards for her birthday and Christmas sent from other places to mask his true home location. He’d been fine with the voicemails left a couple times a year to let her know he wished her well and that he was doing fine too. He’d been fine to send her gifts on occasion (which he’d discovered she hadn’t wanted or accepted and why). But now it seemed he was fine with this; whatever this new relationship was where they actually talked a little back and forth when he called. Where sliver by sliver he was probably helping his mother heal. And truth be told even if he didn’t want to admit it he was healing in some convoluted way too.

Everyone needs their mother no matter how much of an asshole they claim to be. Especially when she’d done nothing wrong; nothing to hurt him or alienate him or piss him off like everyone else from that other life had. Even if his mother wanted to she hadn’t tried to hold onto him tightly with both fists and pull him one way or another or keep him still like everyone else seemed to have done to some degree. 

His mother had never tried to take away Nate’s control.

He had to acknowledge that now. She had always been just what he’d needed and as a result he left and distanced himself and hurt her but he’d always still respected her and kept up that tiny bit of communication to let her know he still cared and he was okay.

Maybe it was an asshole thing to do but it had been part of his world of control. And now he could acknowledge that his mistake was not to have gone to see her three months ago but to not have gone sooner.

Well, fuck me-