Reborn Omega; I Refuse To Be Your Substitute

skippp

I didn't even remember putting the phone down.

Mom's voice was still sitting somewhere in my head, soft and hopeful in a way that made everything worse.

*Leon is coming back.*

The words just stayed there. Didn't move, didn't fade, just settled somewhere behind my eyes like they'd found a place and decided not to leave.

I turned onto my side and stared at nothing in particular.

"Of course," I muttered.

My eyes burned a little. Not enough to cry, just enough to be annoying. Maybe it was frustration, maybe it was just too many things happening in one day.

I closed my eyes.

And then the memories started. Not because I wanted them to.... just because they did.

---

I was sixteen when my mom brought me into the Vance house for the first time.

I still remember holding her hand too tightly at the gate, looking up at the building and feeling something I couldn't name properly. It wasn't fear exactly. More like the feeling you get when you already know something isn't going to go the way you hope.

"Mom," I said quietly. "Are you sure about this?"

She smiled at me, the kind of smile that was working a little too hard. "It's going to be fine, Nora. Just be polite, okay?"

Polite. I didn't know then that polite sometimes just meant don't react no matter what happens.

The house was too big, too quiet, too clean in a way that felt like nobody actually lived inside it. Like it belonged to people who didn't laugh much.

Big, expensive. Everything about the Vance was.

I saw him for the first time near the staircase.

Leon Vance. Standing with his hands in his pockets, not doing anything dramatic, just existing in a way that immediately made the room feel smaller. He was older than me by enough years that it showed in everything, the way he stood, the way he looked at things, the way he didn't seem particularly bothered by anything happening around him.

My mom let go of my hand and smiled.

"Leon, this is Nora."

He looked at me. Then at my mom.

"Right." he said.

That was it. One word, then he walked past us both like we were furniture being moved in.

I remember blinking at the empty space he left behind. Not angry, not hurt, just genuinely confused. I didn't know yet that okay was actually a lot of words coming from him.

The weeks that followed taught me quickly that Leon didn't talk unless he had to.

Not to me, not to my mom, barely even to his own father. At dinner my mom would try, always smiling, always filling the silence before it got too heavy.

"Leon, I made your favorite," she'd say, setting the dish in front of him carefully.

He'd eat without responding. No thank you, no reaction, just silence and a plate that slowly emptied.

I used to watch her hands when she served him. How they moved just a little too carefully, like she was trying to earn something she wasn't sure existed. And I hated it, not her, never her, but him, because he never once looked at her like she mattered.

At school it wasn't much better. Girls talked about him constantly, the kind of talk that followed someone who didn't seem to notice or care about the attention.

"Have you seen Leon Vance?"

"He doesn't date anyone."

"He doesn't even look at anyone."

I saw it happen once, a girl from his circle waiting for him after school with a packed lunch box and a smile she'd clearly practiced. She touched his arm and laughed too loudly, holding the box out like it was an offering.

Leon looked at it, then at her.

"You shouldn't waste your time," he said, and walked away.

No insult, no cruelty, nothing dramatic. Just final, the way a closed door was final.

She kept smiling but her eyes dropped after he left, and I stood watching from a distance thinking, he doesn't even pretend. Not for anyone.

I told myself I found it annoying. And I did. Well, mostly.

Then one afternoon changed things, which I didn't appreciate at the time and appreciated even less looking back.

There was a boy at school, a senior, who had made a habit of bothering me near the gate. Nothing serious enough to report, just persistent and irritating in the way certain people were when they thought they were funny.

I didn't even know Leon was nearby until he spoke.

"Leave her."

Two words. Quiet, not aggressive, not even particularly loud. But something in his voice made the boy stop mid-sentence and take a step back, and then another, and then he was just gone.

I turned around, and Leon was already walking away.

I stood there for a second, then jogged slightly to catch up.

"Hey," I said, slightly out of breath. "Thank you."

He glanced at me briefly.

"Be more careful around boys like that," he said. "That's all."

Then he kept walking.

That was it. No warmth, no you're welcome, nothing. Just a piece of advice delivered like a passing comment and then his back getting smaller as he walked ahead of me.

I stood there watching him go, and I genuinely don't know what happened in my head at that exact moment, but something shifted.

Not immediately. Not all at once. But after that, I started noticing things I hadn't paid attention to before.

The way he moved through a room. The way he never raised his voice but people listened anyway. The fact that I'd never once seen him be unkind to anyone directly, not cruel, not personal, just... absent in a way that people confused for coldness.

I started looking for him in rooms without meaning to. Not on purpose, not because I made a decision about it, just because my brain started doing it anyway.

Did he come home? Was he at dinner? Was he in the house?

Stupid questions. I knew they were stupid even then.

One day I passed a small shop and saw a watch strap and thought of him for absolutely no reason I could explain, and I bought it, and then spent three days arguing with myself about whether to give it to him.

I gave it to him.

I remember standing in the hallway, holding it out, my hands not entirely steady.

"Leon...."

He turned and looked at me the way he looked at most things. Like I was something he was mildly waiting to finish.

"Here.... For you," I said.

He looked at the strap for a long moment, then at me.

"You don't have to keep trying so hard," he said. "You're my father's family, Nora. That's all."

Something inside me went very still.

I smiled anyway, because I didn't know what else to do with my face.

"Oh....." I said, lucky my voice didn't break. "Right...."

He looked at me once and walked away, and I stood there holding the same watch because he hadn't taken it, and I didn't know whether to feel embarrassed or relieved or just tired.

I settled on all three.

That was the last time I tried anything with Leon Vance.

He left not long after that.

No announcement, no explanation, at least not one I was allowed to hear. I woke up one morning and he simply wasn't in the house anymore, and when I asked my mom about it she just said he'd gone and left it there.

His father didn't explain either. I'd watched how that man operated enough by then to understand that Leon's life hadn't been as simple as I'd assumed from the outside. The way his father spoke to him sometimes. The expectations that seemed to press down on every conversation they had. I'd thought Leon was just difficult and ungrateful back then, a spoiled son who didn't appreciate what he had.

Later I wondered if I'd been looking at it wrong.

But by then he was already gone, and it wasn't my business either way.

The house felt quieter after he left. Not peaceful.... just empty in a way that didn't have a proper name.

And somewhere between one week and the next, the thing I hadn't even fully admitted to myself just stopped. No dramatic ending, no moment of clarity, just the slow quiet of someone being absent long enough that your heart finally got the message and moved on.

At least I thought it had.

---

I opened my eyes slowly.

The ceiling was still there, same as before, but my chest felt heavier than it had a few minutes ago.

Leon was coming back.

I pulled the blanket up around my shoulders and stared at nothing.

*Would he have changed?*

The thought came quietly, which was the worst kind. The loud ones were easier to dismiss.

I frowned at myself in the dark.

It had been years, a completely different life ago. I was sixteen and didn't know anything and whatever I'd felt back then had nothing to do with who I was now. There was nothing left there. Nothing that should still feel like anything.

I closed my eyes again.

But just before sleep finally won, one last thought slipped through anyway, soft and unwanted.

*If I saw him again, would my heart still remember something my mind had already decided to forget?*

The room stayed quiet.

I didn't answer it.

I just drifted off, still not sure.