Euphony Trio: Encore

Axel stood across the street from the house he swore he'd never return to.

The paint was duller than he remembered — a chalky off-white, faded and flaking at the corners. The once-bright blue trim was now more like dust. The lawn had given up trying, patchy with yellow tufts and weeds that clung stubbornly to life. A broken garden gnome lay sideways near the porch steps, one eye rubbed off, like even it had stopped watching.

The windows stared back at him like tired eyes — shut, silent, a little sunken. As if the house itself had slouched into disrepair, exhausted from pretending it had anything left to offer.

He hadn't been here in six years.

And yet, it still knew him. Still held the shape of his shadow.

The neighborhood felt smaller than it used to — unnervingly so. The houses were all still lined up like a forgotten chorus, and the trees that once towered over him now looked shorter. The sidewalk bore the same crack he used to trace with his skateboard wheels. The rusted fence he jumped the night he ran away at eighteen was still standing, though it leaned slightly now, as if it, too, had been worn down by time.

Nothing had changed.

And that's what made it so hard to breathe.

He crossed the street slowly, his boots crunching faintly against the loose gravel by the curb. In his pocket, the key she'd mailed him dug into his palm — unfamiliar, sharp at the edge. He could've ignored it. Could've tossed it. Could've said no.

But he hadn't.

He stood in front of the door, hand closing around the key. His jaw tightened.

He hadn't told anyone he was coming — not Sunny, not Zane, not even Laura... This wasn't for them.

It wasn't even for her.

He was here for himself. For the boy who used to press his ear to the wall at night just to feel the vibrations of the songs he wasn't allowed to play out loud. For the kid who wrote lyrics in the back of math notebooks and imagined applause he never thought he'd hear. For the teenager who packed his bag and left with a burned CD, forty bucks, and a dream nobody believed in but him.

He wasn't here for reconciliation.

He was here to end something.

Or maybe… just name it for what it always was:

Absence, dressed up in drywall and hand-me-down furniture.Loneliness wearing the costume of a home.

---

The key turned with a reluctant click, and the door creaked open — just slightly warped from age. Axel stepped inside and shut it quietly behind him, as if not to disturb the ghosts that lived here.

The air smelled like old books and lemon-scented cleaner — sharp and artificial, clinging to the walls like someone had tried to wipe the past away with polish and bleach. But the past didn't go. It just lingered in the corners, behind doorframes, between the floorboards.

The living room was cleaner than he expected. Not spotless, but… curated. Dusted shelves with too few things on them. A couch with cushions that looked barely used. The same coffee table, still nicked from when he'd dropped his guitar tuner on it at fifteen. The rug had changed — thicker, beige — but somehow made the space feel even more lifeless.

No framed photos. Not even one of him. Not even the fake kind.

Just quiet.

He didn't call out. If she was here, she'd show herself. If not… maybe that was better.

He drifted forward, the floorboards giving a soft groan beneath his steps. His hand reached out instinctively as he passed the narrow hallway — fingers brushing the wall where chipped paint still marked the spot his old band poster used to hang.

"The Riot Saints — Live Loud, Die Louder."They weren't even that good. But at sixteen, they were gods to him.

He remembered taping the poster up crooked and getting yelled at for scratching the paint.He remembered tuning his drums with headphones on, trying not to wake anyone.He remembered the one night he played without muting — the one night he just needed to feel something shake.

His mom hadn't come in. She hadn't said anything at all.

That had been worse than yelling.

His steps slowed as he neared the end of the hall, where his bedroom door still sat slightly ajar — the same faded wooden frame, the same tarnished brass knob. He pushed it open.

The room was… mostly empty. A few stacked boxes. A single chair. The walls were bare now, except—

A single sticker, stuck to the closet door. Peeling at the corners, but still legible.

"Musicians Do It With Rhythm."

He almost smiled. It was stupid. It had been stupid when he stuck it on there with all the conviction of a kid who wanted to seem cooler than he was. But he hadn't taken it down, even when the edges curled. Even when his friends laughed.

Maybe music hadn't saved him. Not completely. But it gave him a reason to keep moving. A reason to leave. A reason to believe he could be more than a mistake echoing around a too-quiet house.

He stepped inside, the smell hitting him again — not lemon this time, but dust and drywall. The scent of rooms that haven't been lived in for a long time.

He ran his hand along the edge of the desk that used to be his. Still faintly scratched from years of drumstick dents and restless tapping.

He could still hear the rhythm sometimes. The imaginary one he'd play in his head when he couldn't sleep.

He looked around — at the empty corners, the closet, the familiar ceiling.

It was strange, how a place could feel smaller and too big at the same time.

This wasn't a home. Not anymore. It was a time capsule. A hollow version of something that might've mattered if anyone had fought to make it matter.

And yet… something tugged at him. Not regret. Not longing.

Just the faint echo of a boy who had once believed that sound could set him free.

He used to think music would save him.

Maybe it did.

Maybe it still could.

---

The kitchen door creaked just slightly as Axel pushed it open.

The room looked almost untouched. Same tile. Same dull yellow cabinets that always felt a decade behind the rest of the world. The table was new — rectangular, smoother wood, less cluttered than the old one — but it didn't fit. It looked like a borrowed piece, something meant for staging rather than living.

A half-empty mug sat beside the sink. Still warm, maybe. She'd been here recently. Or maybe she just didn't care enough to wash it.

He didn't call out.

Instead, he pulled out one of the old chairs — not the matching new ones, but a worn wooden one tucked at the end, probably forgotten. It groaned slightly under his weight, familiar.

There was an envelope sitting at the center of the table, unopened. Thick. White. The kind that didn't pretend to be personal.

He didn't need to read the return address. The font gave it away.

The bank.

He stared at it for a moment, then looked away. He wasn't surprised. She'd already told him. The house was drowning and the water had been rising for years.

He didn't touch the letter.

He didn't come here to rescue anyone. Not anymore.

Not her. Not this place. Not the version of himself that used to sit right here, fists clenched under the table after another silent dinner. Not the boy who tried so hard to play normal, to be good enough, to matter.

His eyes drifted toward the back door — the same one he used to sneak out of when the walls felt too heavy, when the silence got too loud. He'd take his acoustic guitar and head to whoever's garage was free that night. Didn't matter if it was freezing or pouring or if his hands were raw from rehearsal — music was the only thing that let him breathe.

Once a week, if he was lucky, he could make noise that didn't feel like screaming.

He remembered the feeling of coming back late. Quietly unlocking the door. Slipping in through the kitchen in the dark.

No lights. No waiting figures.

Sometimes he wasn't even sure they'd noticed he'd left.

Other times he was sure they had — and just didn't care.

He leaned forward, resting his arms on the table, eyes trailing along the grain of the wood.

He didn't hate her. Not really.

But he couldn't forgive her, either.

Not for the years she spent in the same house as him, but never truly with him. Not for the way she seemed to shrink whenever he talked about music, like it embarrassed her. Like it reminded her that he had dreams — and that she had none.

She hadn't screamed. She hadn't hit. There were no dramatic fights, no thrown plates.

Just the slow, aching erosion of being seen less and less, until he was invisible.

It was a different kind of damage. A quieter kind. The kind that no one believes you about, because nothing looks broken from the outside.

He sat in the silence, letting it settle around him like smoke. He didn't fight it.

She wasn't here.

Maybe she was waiting for him to make the first move. Or maybe she didn't want to see him at all — just wanted the house saved, and didn't care who saved it.

Didn't matter.

He wasn't here for her.

He was here to decide what pieces of this life — if any — were still worth keeping.

---

The kitchen felt too still, too tight, like the air had stopped moving. Axel stood slowly, the chair scraping against the tile as he pushed it back. He walked to the back door, slipped through it like muscle memory, and stepped outside.

The air was cooler than before. The sun had never broken through the clouds, and now the sky hung gray and low, as if it was waiting for something. The porch awning above him groaned faintly in the breeze.

He crossed his arms, shifting his weight as he stared out at the yard.

The same half-collapsed fence. The patch of dirt where grass refused to grow. The crooked stepping stones leading nowhere.

This wasn't a home. Not anymore.

Maybe it never had been.

It was a building held together by drywall, distance, and the echoes of things unsaid. A place where he learned how to disappear without leaving.

He could sell it. Walk away, get what he could from the foundation and call it closure.

Or he could keep it. Fix it. Strip it of its history and make it something else entirely — a studio, maybe. A quiet place to create.

But even that felt hollow. Like renovating a wound.

Some ghosts couldn't be renovated. Some didn't leave, even when you changed the locks.

His hands were cold in his jacket pockets. He closed his eyes for a second and took a breath — long and deep — then exhaled slowly through his nose.

That's when he heard footsteps.

Soft at first. Then louder. From down the street.

He opened his eyes.

And there she was.

Theresa.

His mother.

She looked older than he remembered — thinner, hunched slightly from age or guilt, maybe both. Her coat looked a size too big, the hem of it brushing her knees. Her hair had more gray now, pulled back in a loose, tired bun. She carried herself like someone who wasn't sure if they should keep walking.

For a second, Axel's instinct was to turn around. Go back inside. Pretend he hadn't seen her. Pretend this whole thing had never happened.

But he didn't.

He stood there.

Watched her cross the sidewalk slowly, her steps unsure, like she was preparing for a door that wouldn't open.

She looked up, saw him, and stopped.

Neither of them spoke. Not yet.

Axel looked at her — really looked — and saw someone who might've once been his mother. Someone who had tried, maybe, in her own broken way. Someone who had failed. But also someone who was here now.

Maybe that counted for something.

Maybe it didn't.

He breathed in again. The air tasted like rain, sharp and close.

Then, softly — more to himself than to her — he whispered:

"Let's end this right."

---

She stepped closer, but not too close. There was still a polite distance between them — like strangers trying not to crowd each other at a bus stop.

"Hey," she said softly, voice weathered, almost winded. "You came."

Axel nodded once. His hands stayed in his pockets.

She glanced at the house behind him, then back at him. "Looks worse than I remember."

"It looked worse when I lived here," he murmured.

A beat passed.

Theresa looked down at the ground, rubbing the corner of her sleeve between her fingers. "I didn't know if you'd actually come."

"I didn't either," he said.

She nodded — slow, like she was swallowing something heavy.

"I wasn't lying, about the bank. They're giving me a couple months, but… I can't keep up. I thought maybe—" she stopped herself, shook her head, "—never mind. Doesn't matter."

Axel looked past her, toward the street. A couple birds scattered from the power lines overhead.

"You want me to save it," he said. Not a question.

"I wanted to give you the choice," she replied. "I didn't want to take it from you. Not again."

He exhaled through his nose.

"It's not mine to save," he said. "It never was."

She winced — just barely — but didn't argue.

"I used to think," he continued, "that if I could make it… if I really made something of myself, maybe I could come back here and feel proud. Like I'd proven something."

"And now?" she asked.

Axel looked back at the house. The tired paint. The lifeless windows. The silence.

"Now I just feel tired," he said. "Tired of pretending this place ever gave a damn about me."

Theresa said nothing. Her hands stayed folded at her stomach, like she wasn't sure what else to do with them.

After a pause, Axel added, "I'm not taking it. The house. You can sell it, or let it fall apart. But it's not my problem anymore."

"I understand," she said, and she meant it. "I think I knew that before I even asked."

He looked at her — really looked — and saw the age in her eyes. Not just years, but regret. Weathering. Like life had worn her down, and she'd let it.

"You don't have to forgive me," she said quietly. "I wouldn't expect that. But I do want you to know… I see it now. What I missed. What I ruined."

Axel didn't answer right away.

"I'm with someone," he said, changing the subject.

Her eyes lifted.

"A girl?" she asked, unsure if she was allowed to ask at all.

"Her name's Laura," he said. "She's good. Steady. And she's been through more than most people should."

Theresa nodded slowly.

"I thought for a second," he continued, voice tightening, "what if I kept the house? Fixed it. Made it new. Maybe shared it with her someday."

A pause.

"But then I realized… I wouldn't be doing that for us. I'd be doing it for the past. And I don't want to bring her into another broken family home. She's already had one of those."

Theresa lowered her eyes.

"I don't want my future to look like my past," he said, final now. "Not for her. Not for me."

"I'm glad you found someone," she said, after a moment. "Really. I hope she sees you the way I should've."

He blinked, then looked down, his jaw shifting slightly.

She stepped back, slowly, giving him space.

"I won't contact you again," she added. "Unless you want me to."

"I don't," he said. Gently. Not cruel. Just honest.

Theresa nodded.

He turned away then — toward the street, toward the future.

She didn't follow.

And as he walked, he didn't look back.

The house stood silent behind him.

But for once, it didn't follow.