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“Hey, Soph. How are you?”
As much as I tried to stop it, I couldn’t. I burst into tears. “I think I’ve broken my arm again.”
“Oh, Soph, no. How? Have you been to hospital?”
I relayed the ridiculous scenario back to her in a croaky voice, wiping at my tears every few words. With each passing minute I spoke to her, I calmed down, realising I was probably making a mountain out of a molehill.
“Sophie, honestly.” A soft laugh trickled down the phone line. “Trust you to do something so silly.”
I smiled at her words. I had been a clumsy child, only growing out of it as I ended my teenage years. “The bird was pretty though.”
She laughed. “That’s ok then. Listen, on a serious note, you’re going to get it looked at, ok? Give yourself peace of mind.”
I agreed with her, telling her I’d let her know the results. I lingered around saying goodbye. I wanted to talk, to get things off my chest. Being my mum of course, she knew my funny little habits.
“You ok, honey?”
“No.” I closed my eyes as more tears escaped. “I can’t...I still can’t believe he did it to me. How could he do that? Ten years of my life, of our lives, just gone. Like that.”
Silence followed for a few seconds. “I don’t know, Sophie. I really am at a loss with him.”
My quiet tears became sobs, huge gasping breaths wracking my chest as I finally let everything out. “He effectively put me in a coma. I spent weeks in hospital with nothing else to think about. How am I supposed to forgive him for that? I can’t.”
She comforted me as much as she could over the phone. I nodded along, mute from my pain. To hurt emotionally, I could handle. To hurt physically, I could also handle. Both together? Well, that resulted in this, right now. A whiny, blubbery mess melting into oblivion.
“Something made you attempt to patch things up, honey. Remember that.”
I snorted, my anger making a slow comeback, crawling over my distress with its red-hot tendrils. “The fact I needed care once I was out of the hospital. That was it. If it hadn’t been for the fact I was confined to my bed twenty-four seven, I wouldn’t have had the chance to soften to his meaningless crap.”
“You could have come home for your father and I to look after you. Something made you want to stay.”
“It’s my house as much as his. Why should I have to recuperate elsewhere because of him? Plus, running around after me constantly was the least he could do.” A smile crossed my lips at this, my cruel side peeking from beneath.
A long exhale sounded down the line. “Don’t think about it for now, ok? Get your arm sorted out and think about him another time. You can’t deal with all of it at once.”
I took a deep breath, agreeing with her before saying my goodbyes. At least something good had come of talking to Mum—my sorrow was now replaced with the familiar bubble of fury deep in my gut. At the moment, it was this which drove me forwards, kept me ticking over and on the side of sanity.
Feeling better, I splashed my face with cold water, swallowed some ibuprofen, and headed up to the main house to the movie theatre. Losing myself in an alternate reality was more than needed right now.
