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Parents were meant to protect their children, good parents. And we both had good parents, when we were old enough to realize that, we understood we needed to protect them right back.
“You seem different,” Mom said. “Better.” Some of that old sadness flickered into this new happiness. “I would keep myself up at night worrying about you. That’s a mother’s job, of course. Especially when something hurts her baby like what happened to you. Especially when I knew there was not a thing on this earth I could do but just watch and hope you recovered.” She sucked in a breath. “And I know your heart. I know that it’s big, it’s special and it is precious. So I knew it wouldn’t fully recover. I understood why you chased all that war and violence and ugliness. I hated it, with every fiber of my being. Your father did too. But we understood.”
They did. As much as they tried to convince me otherwise, tried the best they could to support me.
“And when you came back, I let out some of my worry,” she said. “But I still harbored a lot. Because I could see that you didn’t know where you fit when you weren’t chasing ugliness and wars. I know you couldn’t fit into lives like your sister and brother did. Though I wished for that. Because both of them have beautiful lives.” She paused. “Well, your brother would if he’d open his eyes and stop divorcing his wives,” she muttered.
I smiled.
“All I want for you is beauty,” she whispered. “But life gave you ugly. So you can’t fit into beauty the same way. I was worried you’d never fit anywhere, not without Liam. But now, you seem like you’re more…at peace.”
I wanted to laugh. Almost as badly as I wanted to break down in tears. I wanted to seek solace in my mother. Get her counsel. Tell her the ugly truth that I was dragging around my home.
But I had to protect my mother.
And I had to protect Liam.
But I still wanted to laugh at the fact my mother, who I’d always been sure was a little bit psychic because of her ability to see things in me I never said out loud, said that I was at peace when I was in the middle of a war.
But she was right.
I never fit anywhere. The only places I did feel like I could breathe were warzones. My hometown was too quiet. Too loud.
Cities felt too stifling, busy, asinine.
I could never relate to lifestyles my friends picked.
If I was honest with myself, I had that same fear my mother held. I was terrified I’d be lost my whole life, just pretending to fit. Pretending to be happy. Pretending to be human.
I’d been doing a lot over the past few weeks. But I wasn’t pretending to be anything.
Before I left, I went to pick up some more clothes out of my old closet, considering I hadn’t exactly packed when I left the compound. And for some reason, I still couldn’t face going to the place that was meant to be my home. Most of the clothes in this closet were from summers that only existed in memories, sundresses from the girl before, colors, happiness.
But there were a handful of jeans and tees belonging to the woman I had been too, from when I’d lived here for a scant week before moving into my apartment.
I don’t even know what I was digging for when I found it.
I didn’t even realize it was still in there, banished at the back of a closet. Did I put it there? Did Mom? With some kind of hope I would recycle a wedding dress like I might be able to recycle my heart after having it thrown back at me with no one for it to belong to anymore.
Or did I put it there? With some kind of hope of Liam coming back from the dead? In a different way than this, obviously. In the romance novel, beautiful kind of way, where he walks down the street wearing his uniform, sun shining at his back, future in his hands. I’d see him, be wearing a yellow sundress and I’d sprint to him, jump into his arms, he’d catch me.
Instead it was sixteen years later, and I saw him murder someone in an alley, uniform long gone, replaced with a leather cut and a motorcycle club.
Anger that I’d toyed with that first night came back with more fury than ever before. A need to destroy, to hurt, to annihilate came over me and a red film covered my vision as I snatched the white dress still covered in the dry cleaner’s plastic.
“I know it’s bad luck for a fiancé to see the wedding dress,” I said, not turning as his motorcycle boots thumped against the concrete. I expected him to come. He wasn’t anywhere to be found when I pulled up at the motel. It was getting close to the deadline. “But I figured we’d had all the bad luck in the world, and you’ve been legally declared dead so you’re not my fiancé anymore. But you stopped being that much before the US government recognized your death.”
