I freeze, hoping she’ll miss me standing here. Or that she’ll be sober andhappyfor once.
But I’m all out of luck, it seems, because her dull gray eyes find me immediately.
“Cam,” she greets, her voice full of tension and resentment, her body sagging with exhaustion.
Just looking at her, I can tell she used to be beautiful. Yet, somewhere between the devastation of my father’s accident and learning to live without him, she lost her glow.
Now, all she is is misery and a hot temper.
“Morning,” I mutter, my gaze dropping to the stained carpet of our living room.
“And where are you going?” she asks.
“On a run. I have work at nine.”
“With Uncle Danny?” Her tone is dripping with disdain.
When Dad died and his brother didn’t immediately offer to take us in, Mom decided she hated Uncle Danny. The issue with that is that he has three kids of his own and a sick wife.
How could he possibly take on any more? And being Dad’s brother doesn’t immediately require him to give up his own comfort for ours.
But Mom doesn’t understand this. She refuses to. She’s too blinded by her own anger, her own sadness.
I don’t believe my mom ever wanted to be a mother; she just really loved my dad, and when he said he wanted her to keep their unborn baby, she agreed. Now she’s stuck with me, and he’s gone, and she hates that.
“Yes,” I confirm, lifting my eyes to meet hers.
Mom stares at me in distaste, her lips curled into a snarl, but she doesn’t comment on my new job. Most likely because it’ll givehermore income. Mom doesn’t bother to work, not since the day I turned sixteen and could do it for her.
“I need some money,” she spits out, holding her palm up for me to place cash in.
“I’m just now starting this gig; I don’t have any—”
“And you don’t have anything from your last paycheck at the diner?” she interjects. “That’s hard to believe, Cameron.”
In truth, I do. But it’s just enough for gas and groceries this week. I can’t spare any cash for her to waste on booze if we want to eat or if I want tokeepmy job at my uncle’s.
“No, sorry. But I’ll let you know as soon as I get my first paycheck,” I tell her.
It’s the wrong answer. I can never seem to figure out therightone, another reason why being the dictator of my own life is frustrating and overwhelming. I never make the right choice; I never take the correct path.
I should not be trusted to take responsibility alone.
Mom crosses the living room with a quickness that should not belong to a hungover woman, her hand coming down hard on my cheek.
“Don’t lie, son. I’m yourmother.” She’s shaking with rage, glaring at me as I hold my stinging face. “You look just like him. When I see you, all I can see is what I lost.”
Mom says this a lot. She never fails to tell me exactly why she despises me. And the truth is, I don’t think I look much like my dad.
He was a handsome man with his dark hair and kind brown eyes, something I’ve seen in the few photos Mom still has stashed in the boxes she has stacked in the hall closet.
I was givenhergenes, with my blond hair and gray eyes, my small nose, and soft skin. The only reason I have the build I do is through sheer willpower.
“Sorry,” I whisper, my eyes trained on her red heels.
“If I had insisted on the abortion, would he still be here?” she wonders aloud for the millionth time. “If I had taken any other path, would he not have gotten in the car that morning?”
“I don’t know,” I answer, because the question is never a rhetorical one.
