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The sudden movement knocked me off my board and my butt fell hard into the water.
“I knew it!” He hovered above me like a beast, glarin’ down at me with so much hate, I nearly jolted out of my skin. “I knew you’d come over here and rub it my face! What, Harley? Trying to be nosey? Want to tell me how I don’t deserve a mom? How you’re happy this is happening to me? How you can’t wait until she’s gone, so you can see me cry? See me sad, miserable, dying without her?! How much you hope I lose my mind too? That I don’t remember you! Or my family! Or my life! That’s what you want to say to me, right?! Tell me, baby girl! Tell me all the things you’ve been saving up to say to me! Tell me right now!”
“Oh my God!” I repeated with wide eyes, surrenderin’ my hands out in front of me. “That’s not why I came over here!”
“Bullshit! You’re so full of shit! You want to hear what’s going on, Nancy Drew?! You want to know how long she’s been losing her shit? How she would forget her keys, her cellphone, her purse… how it started off with small things that became bigger things? Little by little, she started forgetting football games, parent-teacher conferences… dinners, meetings, dates with my dad! How we thought it was only cuz she was overwhelmed? How maybe if we would have got her checked out sooner, they could have done something? How we let it go on for an entire year when my dad is a fuckin’ doctor? Tell me, Harley! Am I telling you everything you wanted to know?!”
“I’m not the enemy, Jackson! I’m here for you!”
“The fuck you aren’t! You’re always the enemy!”
I tried to get up. “Can you just let me—”
He loomed over me, knockin’ me back down. “Did you know that my parents were trying to have the baby girl they always wanted? Did you know that maybe that could have triggered something in her mind to lose it? Huh? Tell me, smarty pants! Since you’re so smart!”
I rapidly shook my head. “I didn’t know that!”
His hatred-filled eyes deepened while he panted profusely, his body shaking.
“I’m sorry, Jackson! I’m so sorry!” I exclaimed, my own eyes brewin’ with tears.
He’d never seen me cry. Ever, but there was no controllin’ it. I’d never wanted to cry more in my life than I did in that moment with him.
Showin’ him my pain.
My grief.
My support for him.
Tears slid down the sides of my face as his began to fall too. I’d never seen him cry either, only makin’ this way more intense between us.
Slowly, he knelt in front of me. Gettin’ so close to my face, I could feel his breath against my lips when he rasped, “You know she forgot me first? Out of everyone in her life... out of all your family, all her friends… her kids… my mom forgot me first.”
With a stream of fresh tears, I wept, “Your mom loves you more than anythin’ in this world, Jackson.”
He didn’t hesitate in replyin’, “Sometimes… my mom doesn’t even know who I am. And it’s only going to get worse until she forgets me completely.”
I winced, hearin’ him say that was like a knife to my heart.
“The life my dad worked so hard to give her… the one he fought for… to block out all the bad memories of what happened when they were kids in the system. The life they prayed for, with their two sons and a baby girl, in the house with the white fence and red door, surrounded by sunflowers he put in the ground for her… to make her happy, to make her smile, to make her know she was loved… it doesn’t matter now. None of it does. Not his struggle, not their battle to overcome all the bullshit in their way. Because in the end of her short life, she won’t remember any of it, Harley. Not her, not us, no one. You want me to tell you what happens next?”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t say anythin’.
“Her body is going to forget how to work. She won’t be able to walk, to talk, to move… until her heart forgets to beat, her lungs forget to breathe, and her body just shuts down…”
“Jackson…”
“Then, she dies. With nothing. Without even knowing she’s gone and left us all behind. She lived her entire life for nothing, Harley. Do you see? Do you understand now? My mom is going to die, and then I have to spend the rest of my life wondering… waiting for the time, for the year, for the day… I’ll forget everything too.”
I sucked in my lips, tryin’ to keep it together for him. But I couldn’t help myself, I threw my arms around his neck.
Needin’ him to feel my warmth.
My comfort.
My love?
It was all so confusin’. I hated him, but in that moment, it didn’t feel that way.
