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We’re saved by the server bringing us our check. Mom doesn’t want to look bad in front of the only people she considers friends. True to her word, Elowyn picks up the check, and doing rough math against the pile of cash she leaves on the plastic tray, I can tell that she’s left a generous tip, too. I want to tell her that no matter what she does or how kind she is while doing it, it will never appease my mother. But knowing Elowyn, she’d just keep trying.
In that moment, I fall even harder for her. After today, I realize how good she is. Just an amazing person inside and out.
Mom doesn’t talk much on the ride home, clutching her Styrofoam box with her half-eaten patty melt in her lap and pursing her lips like someone made her eat a pound of lemons. She barely says goodbye to me when we drop her off and doesn’t even look back at Elowyn before slamming the passenger side door shut and trudging off up the front walk.
By the time we get back to Elowyn’s place, I feel like a bruise. Every bit of me aches, and all I want to do is close the curtains and go to sleep. I can’t keep doing this with my only parent, but I don’t know of an alternative. Mom doesn’t have anyone else. Sitting on the sofa, Elowyn takes me in her arms and just lets me breathe.
“I’m sorry about our day off,” I mumble into her shoulder. “You were so excited, and you got all of this instead. It was shit, and it was all my fault.”
“No wonder,” she mutters halfway to herself, stroking her nails along my bicep.
I don’t follow the U-turn our conversation just took. “No wonder what?”
“No wonder you had trouble accepting me,” she sighs. “I can see why you have your guard up so high all the time.”
“She just… needs me.” I sit all of the way up, wriggling out of Elowyn’s embrace. It’s hard to let myself be coddled right now when I can’t help but feel like everything I touch turns to shit. As exhausted as I am, she’s still my mom. And I can’t bring myself to talk badly about her. Nothing good can come of being a dickhead to my only family. “She’s had a horrible life. She’s a little jaded.”
“She does need you,” Elowyn insists. “But it doesn’t give her the right to treat you that way when you’re just trying to help her. You want what’s best for her and that alone should mean something.”
“She’s just…” I can’t begin to tell her just how much I feel like I owe my mother. That if Joel was still alive, things might not be so hard on her. That she’s never forgiven me for any of that, and how I’ve spent the better part of a decade trying to earn her back, but not getting more than a tiny flicker of the beautiful, vibrant woman she once was. “I’ve hurt her. A lot.”
Elowyn’s face scrunches up. “I doubt that. And even if you did, she’s the parent. That doesn’t give her the right to hurt you back. She’s old enough to know better.”
The earnestness in Elowyn’s gaze softens me. She means well, and I appreciate how much she cares about me, but it’s starting to feel a bit hypocritical coming from her. Elowyn has just as much of a tendency to overextend herself for her family as I do. Everything has been going so well for us—I don’t want to make today any worse by starting an argument over family drama which seems to be something every person has to deal with in some shape or form. Elowyn deserves better after how well she rolled with the punches today. And besides, Mom has drained away any emotional energy I had left.
“Can we talk about anything else?” I grab her laptop from the side table on my right, gently placing it in her lap. “How about your site? More orders?”
“I get it. Family is off-limits. Which means no matter how annoying my two sisters are, you can’t hate them.” She nods, opening up the laptop and typing in her password. “Let’s look together.”
The glow from the laptop screen softly illuminates Elowyn’s face. She has this concentrated look, a slight crease between her eyebrows that I find adorable. She clicks open her website and a smile breaks through.
“You won’t believe this, but I got a request to find a life-size chocolate gorilla.” She turns the laptop toward me, displaying the message in her inbox.
“A chocolate what now?” I burst out laughing, my earlier tension dissipating. Her smile has a tendency to do that for me.
“Yes! A life-size chocolate gorilla,” she reiterates, giggling along. “I mean, I’ve been expecting some bizarre requests, but this takes the cake... or, I suppose, the chocolate in this case.”
A smile-filled pause stretches between us. Moments like these remind me how lucky I am to have Elowyn in my life. Despite the family drama, despite the emotional exhaustion, she has this infectious energy that makes everything seem lighter when I’m a man who can easily let himself fall too far into the dark.
“What would someone even do with a life-size chocolate gorilla?” I ask, still chuckling.
“Well,” she drawls, feigning deep thought, “my guess is as good as yours. Perhaps they’re planning a jungle-themed party where they invite guests to take a bite off the gorilla?”
“Like instead of the cupcake tower?” I look at Elowyn, her brown eyes sparkling with mirth, her melodic voice filling the air, and I know I’m already getting too attached.
She catches me staring and raises an eyebrow, a teasing smile playing on her lips. “Careful there, Weston. If you keep looking at me like that, I might start thinking you like me.”
I playfully nudge her shoulder, my heart pounding in my chest. “Yeah, you’re pretty tough to take.”
A moment passes between us, but the kind that’s comfortable. The kind that words would ruin. Elowyn’s smile softens, her eyes reflecting the emotion I’m sure is mirrored in mine.
“Oh, Weston,” she sighs, a touch of wicked in her voice. “You should know... I have a life-size chocolate Weston already on the way. With anatomically correct parts. I mean, why just order one life-sized chocolate figure when you can order two?”
As we settle down from another round of teasing, I wrap my arm around her, pulling her closer.
“I know you’re only teasing,” I begin, looking into her eyes, “but if you do ever decide to order a life-size chocolate Weston for you to lick and nibble, make sure they add extra chocolate around my muscles. I’ve been totally committed to Tai chi.”
She squeezes my bicep, but then her hand drifts lower. “Your abs are great, but that wasn’t what I was thinking about devouring. At least not first.”
