"She was so patient and loving with us, and then she did such a cruel thing." Now Rob couldn't help crying. "She stole herself from us. Made herself a ghost. But as soon as I think that, I start to ask why didn't we stop her? She didn't turn into a ghost in one day, she was fading all the time." Rob took a shuddering breath. "On the day she took her own life, Mom told me, 'I love you, Robbie.' She hadn't called me that since I was little. I didn't tell her I loved her. I just said, 'You too', like a total dick." Rob sobbed the words angrily and then gulped back tears and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes.
"You weren't a dick just a teenaged boy," Julian told him and smoothed his hands over Rob's hair. "Your mom knew you loved her. She just wanted to make sure you knew she loved you despite what she did."
Rob breathed hard while grief wracked him. "I never knew that someone could say goodbye forever like that, 'Have a good day. I love you, Robbie.'
It pulled the ground out from under my feet. I was blind to her pain, and I wasn't loving enough. I wasn't a good kid."
"I'm sure you were," Julian insisted even though he didn't know him then, so Rob told him what he was like.
"I used to give Mom trouble, and my dad too. I got into fights a lot. Not that I always had a choice. I came out in high school and some guys thought that meant they could mess with me. Seeing me come home with bruises or with a busted lip couldn't have helped my mom's state of mind. And then I started taking on the bullies even when they weren't coming after me. First I'd warn them then I'd punch them out."
"Then you would get suspended," Julian guessed.
"Sometimes. If we were on school property. But I couldn't just stand by. When those assholes started picking on someone, I'd just get so pissed off." Rob remembered the white hot anger and how it got smothered by grief and guilt. He would have been an angel if he had known. He would have never raised his hand against anyone if it would have saved her.
She was so gentle. The only act of violence she committed was against herself with the same hands that could draw the softest sounds from the keys, notes you had to hold your breath to hear.
Rob touched the keys and his hand shook so he drew it back.
"Did your mom teach you to play?" Julian asked, his voice low and soothing, guiding him back from terrible memories.
"I learned the basics, but I had no talent or patience," Rob told him. "Mom didn't push us. She wanted us to find our own passion, that's how she put it. Except I never did. I went to college because it seemed like I should, but I stopped wanting anything. I stopped planning, like her suicide killed something inside me too. All I could do was to keep going, not think too much, not feel too much."
"Rob," Julian whispered and pulled him into a hug.
With his arms around him, Rob let out a strangled cry and buried his face in Julian's shoulder and held him tighter than he should have.
"I would take all your pain if I could," Julian said.
"I wouldn't let you," Rob murmured into the crook of his neck. Being surrounded by the warmth and the strength of his body was enough for now.
