Cinna can barely acknowledge I exist at a food truck thing, so she could care less about me.
Mom? I imagine telling her, and her face goes blank, the way it does when she doesn’t know how to reach me. She’d give me that searching look, then I’d get some cookie-cutter therapist advice. Finally, she’d go quiet, and I’d sit in that quiet and wish I hadn’t said anything.
That leaves Carter. I could tell him. He’s never been in my face about anything, always been friendly. He’s who he’s always been. Even though he’s hooking up with one of June’s friends, he’s the same guy.
He’s at a Hargrove swim match tonight, but out of everyone, Carter is the one who listens without making it about himself. I could say, “Hey, I started using this and now it’s getting hard to stop and I think it’s turning me into someone I don’t want to be.” Carter would nod and say, “That sounds rough, man.” He’d ask what I wanted to do about it instead of telling me. Then he’d help, just like that.
So maybe. Maybe I’ll tell him. Because this thing is getting out of hand and I’m not sure what to do.
Tiredness suddenly creeps into my marrow. It’s barely seven but I’m ready to pass out. Mom knocked a half hour ago and asked if I wanted dinner. I passed. Now my stomach is growling but the thought of walking downstairs and getting food feels impossible.
I click off the bedside lamp. The room goes completely dark. I lie back without changing out of my jeans and hoodie, without pulling back the sheets. I just need to sleep and forget, so I close my eyes. I’ll decide in the morning if I’m going to talk to Carter.
My mind is close to slipping under when my phone buzzes on the nightstand. Then again. And again. It’s a rapid burst of so many that my phone almost vibrates off the edge of the wood.
I groan. If it’s Carter sending memes during the swim match, I’m throwing my phone across the room.
I roll over and grab it. The screen is blinding in the dark, so I squint and try to make sense of things. An unknown number has sent me a string of images.
I open the thread as I yawn and try to focus.
The first image is a small leather-bound book. June’s diary. I’ve seen it around the house a hundred times, and it’s emerald. You don’t usually see emerald leather diaries.
I sit up, suddenly less tired, and flip the lamp back on. My pulse is hammering.
The next image is a page from the diary, with June’s loopy, messy cursive. The sender circled part of the image in red, so I read that snippet:“Seriously, my brother is too passive for his own good. He’s always hanging out in the kitchen but doesn’t say anything. Speak up man!”
Another page:“At the exhibition show today. Dorien there. Irritating man!! Aeron was hovering. I wonder what he thought of my piece because he didn’t really say anything…”
I swipe through more. The images aren’t in order. Some entries are from months ago about things I barely remember,some more recent. All of them are about me in some way. These are June’s private thoughts about me, and the overall message is “disappointment.”
I’m too quiet. I’m all over the place with my art. I’m not trying hard enough. I hover. I don’t speak up. I’m making bad decisions.
The entry about the weed:“It’s illegal! How can my brother be doing something illegal?! What if he’s smoking it at school?? Is he trying to get caught and get suspended and throw away the money Mom spent on his education? WTF! She’s worked so hard to get us both into school and Aeron doesn’t even care!”
My vision blurs, and I blink rapidly to keep seeing the screen. My throat is closing, muscles tightening from the base of my jaw all the way down to my collarbones.
She never writes “failure,” “loser,” or “disappointment” directly. But she doesn’t have to. I can hear the truth under every sentence:I wish my brother were different.
I swipe to the next image. Then the next.
And then to the one that ends me.
“Wow. Wow I don’t even know where to begin. I was looking at baby pictures with Mom and she had some wine, so pretty tipsy. It was hilarious at first, but we opened up a dusty box of random photos. And she pulls out one of her in the hospital holding Aeron. I’ve never seen the picture, but she looked sad. She was crying in it, but it wasn’t a face like, ‘Look at my beautiful baby!’ It was like real despair. So I asked her. Just… wow. She said Aeron was unplanned, like a ‘whoops’ because she’d made a mistake with her birth control. Her and Dad were starting to have problems around that time. Mom literally said, ‘I never wanted to be a boy mom. I only wanted one child. Just a girl.’ I wasn’t sure what to say…”
A few images later:“Thinking about when Mom said Aeron wasn’t planned. I love my brother but I was thinking, what if he was never born? My life would be so different.”
There are more images, but I’m done. I lock my phone and set it face-down on the nightstand. My face is wet, but the crying is silent. I stare at the wall opposite my bed, at a poster of starlight, and tears travel down my cheeks and drip off my jaw. I think I’m feeling absolutely nothing. I really don’t know why there are tears because I’m completely empty inside.
She never wanted me.
Mom held me in that hospital and cried because I was a mistake she couldn’t undo. Somehow, I’ve always known that, it just wasn’t on the surface. I’ve felt it in every careful sentence she chose around me, every time she brushed June’s hair from her face mid-conversation and then looked at me like she was trying to remember where I fit in the picture.
In her heart, she’s only ever held the image of the two of them. Mother and daughter. Her heart holds no picture of the three of us.
Now I finally have proof.
And proof brings a strange kind of quiet. It’s a validation so complete it’s almost peaceful.
