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The light in house Madrigal was a lot sometimes. Even just peering through the cracks could feel blinding.
Bruno himself had to squint against the light of the living room some mornings. He tried to make sure he was at his seat on time and present. Abuela had always been strict about that type of thing.
And well, even if she didn't know he was there he would feel bad being late. It was a family tradition after all.
(Was he still family? Maybe he was just more of a strange old janitor, condemned to the walls after he was deemed useless to preserving the family. Not that anyone had kicked him out like that— the Madrigals would never be so rude directly— but that was still what they thought. The vision had been an excuse to get away just as much as it had been reason on to itself.)
He always tried to take his seat before everyone else got to the table.
It was possible for him to pull up a chair after everyone sat down, of course, assuming they had all fallen into the rhythm of conversation already. It was more nerve wracking though, to know he was making noise when they were right there. He would have to make sure his hands were clenched tight into his green poncho to keep them from knocking on the wood around him. That only made more sound, making the nerves worse, and then he had to do it again and it was just better he didn't start that cycle.
It was even worse if the conversation hit a lull as he sat down, or conversation never picked up at all. (Part of him was sure that it was because he sat down— because he was just a bit too close. It was his curse maybe, leaking through the walls and harming his family even now.) Those were the days he would just settle on the floor instead, unable to bring himself to make any noise at all as he listened to the clatter of forks and silverware.
It made his familia feel even more impossibly far away; more unattainable. He tried to avoid those days.
He didn't always have actual food in the mornings. He was usually able to find something left out from the night before— his hermana Julieta liked to have cooking in the fridge in case of emergency— but sometimes there was nothing and he was left just sitting there listening. He tried to avoid those days as well.
(There were days when it was impossibly hard to remember to say nothing— where he would catch himself correcting his sisters exaggerated stories under his breath, or soothing his sobrinos concerns with reassurances that would probably do more then harm then good. There were other days where he couldn't be more aware of how silent he had to be— of the distance between him and his famila. Or how some of his family barely knew him anymore. How they never really would. How even stories of him had been erased from the family, like he was nothing but a dark ink blot on the family's name. He was, but it still hurt to see it set out so clearly.)
It helped to have food to focus on, so he tried to have something to eat in the mornings.
Not having food had been more of a problem in the first year, when he didn't know how to ration food that well. He would run through a meal as soon as he was hungry. He had gotten better about that of course, one had to when living in the walls. He was uncomfortably familiar with how to push down those hunger pangs and wait, shoving away whatever would keep for later in case of a rainy day and muffling his own traitorous stomach as it threatened to give him away.
So that led to the two sort of unofficial rules of the walls: he was supposed to be the first at the table and he had to make sure he had food the night before.
Abuela would have been proud of that, he likes to think. If she could be proud of him of course. It had always taken him too long to get down from his tower in the mornings, endless stairs and tendency to sleep in biting him where it counted— Abuelas judgment. He used to leave his hermanas waiting to eat for up to thirty minutes, when Pepa would normally give in and start eating anyway, soon to be followed by Julieta but never Abuela. She would wait almost pointedly.
(Bruno remembers one morning, sprinting down his room’s stairs after he overslept. When he got to the table only Abuela was there, glare more biting then the sunlight streaming in through the windows. The other two had long finished and been dismissed. Bruno had never felt more shame then when he sat alone with her that morning, guilt eating away with every bite.)
(Too bad she would never know that he was at the table before even her now. Maybe she wouldn't be as disappointed.)
But scratch that. She would be disappointed in him this morning. He had broken a rule. He had nothing to eat.
It was probably his fault. He hadn't expected Doloris to be restless enough to leave her room that night. She was like a sentinel, and Bruno never felt brave enough to go out if it was just her alone. Maybe if she was talking to someone, but if she was just listening then there was no way she wouldn't hear him go to the kitchen. Dios, there was a high chance she could hear him breathing.
He had held his breath for two minutes straight that night particular thought, before realizing that if Doloris could hear him breathe she would already know he was there. Then the whole house would know by morning. The thought sent his stomach into spirals, but he allowed himself shallow, nervous breaths.
She hadn’t gone back to her room until well into the night, and by that point Bruno was too tired to trust himself to be sneaky.
Now he had no food, and he was squinting by the bright light peeking through the crack in the wall watching his family enjoy themselves like some voyeur.
He shot his head to his table at that thought, staring at the painted plate with a strained intensity. He wasn't really part of the familia after all. Well, he was part of the family but not the familia. He was… somewhere separate from that, and it felt weird for him to be able to sit at the same table as them for a moment. Or, at an adjacent table?
That thought felt better somehow— more fitting— and he let himself breathe for a moment. Quietly he knocked on the wood of the table, hand tangling in his hair as he knocked on his forehead to finish the mantra.
“Pase el queso Luisa, por favor.”
“On it.”
He could hear them so clearly. (Was he allowed to hear them like that? Was he allowed to feel this close? Did he deserve that, or was he bringing them bad luck by being this close? Was he harming them without even knowing it?)
“Camilo, fix your collar.”
“I like it like this papa. Rather suits me, don't you think?”
“Dios mios Camilo,” that was Abuelas disappointment. He would know it anywhere. He flinched from eh tone reflexively. “You are part of the Madrigals, please look the part.”
“Yes Abuela.”
Would she be that disappointed if she could see him? His collar certainly wasn't straight. He was probably covered in dust, even now. Not worthy of the Madrigals by any means. (Was he ever? Would he ever have been? Even if he had been good enough to stay, would he have ever lived up to her expectations? His hermanas examples?)
Bruno could feel his hand tugging at his hair, and he was shoving his other fist in his mouth to snuff out whatever panicked sounds were trying to escape.
“Now enough of that— eat your torta por favor.” He could image Julietas smile as she said it, fond despite herself. He wondered if she was talking to Luisa or Isabela. (He wondered if she had the same look as when she used to prompt him to eat. He wondered if he would ever get to see that look directed at him again.)
“Of course mama.” Mirabel. She had been talking to Mirabel.
Mirabel, barely six as she ate. Mirabel, who had been five little more than a year ago. Who had reached for the miracle with open hands and been given nothing. (Him, who knew it could have been worse. Him, who was sickly grateful that nothing happened, even as his familia fretted around him.)
(Him, who watched the world collapse around her in a sickly shade of green. Him, who would do anything to protect his famlia. Anything.)
“Now fix your face Isabella, what could Dolorious have possibly told you to make you look like that.”
“Nothing!” She said too quickly. Bruno could imagine Dolorous flinching away from the sound as she pulled back from Isabella's ear. “N-nothing…”
Bruno wondered what it was then— if he would ever learn it as the conversation carried on without answer. He wondered if, if he was out there, he could pull them aside and ask. Would they have told him? If he had never left…
His hand tightened in his hair, tugging like he could uproot the thought.
“— and then! Boom! We were there in the middle of a typhoon! Thunder— crack, crack, crack, through the sky!”
“And then the skies cleared?”
“Yes— but do you know why they cleared Mirabel? Do you know what I said?”
Bruno took a deep breath, dislodging his hand from his mouth. He hadn’t realized he was biting down until he saw the welts etched into his knuckles. He shook the hand absentmindedly, sinking further back in his chair. The other hand was yank, yank, yanking and he was almost surprised that no hair was torn away. Maybe that was also part of the miracle, obscenely strong hair.
With his luck it would probably still fall out, even if it was part of the blessing. He had been too scared to foresee if it would for a while. If he did there was a high chance that he would jinx it.
He tried to zone out of the rest of the familias conversations, focusing instead on anything but the growing viod in his stomach. It was something he tuned out most of the time— he rarely took enough excess to humor the hunger— but it was getting so hard to ignore the way it lurched at every clatter of silverware. Every call for seconds. Every mention of how good it was and call to eat more. Every passing conversation filtering through the wooden bars composing his room.
He had detangled the hand from his hair, and now both were tapping at the table as loudly as he dared. He was staring at the empty plate in front of him— painted and wooden where it was supposed to be real. Where it was supposed to be full of his hermanas cooking every morning. Nothing where it was supposed to be something. Disappointing were it was supposed to be exceptional.
It was just a painted plate, with painted silverware. A poor imitation of his familas set.
“Pepa ¿pase el sal por favor?”
A shuffling at the table, neither loud nor quiet. He could imagine Pepa not even looking up as she passed it, too busy eating.
“Gracias.”
Bruno wasn't really paying attention when the rest of the family left for town. When the door of Casita slammed, rendering him as alone as one could be with a sentient house. He didn't stop his shallow breathing, and barely present tapping on the table.
The light from the crack scattered across his painted plate, mocking him with the impossible. With walking outside of the walls. With being part of his family again. With being useful and worthwhile to the town around him.
Sometimes the light through the crack in the wall was too bright, too blinding. He folded his hands in his lap as he looked away, focusing on anything but the growing void in his chest.