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Biting my cheek, I try my best to control the annoyance building up in my chest. I have to taper it before it gets out of control and causes me to do something I’ll regret. She’s trying to move on from what happened between us like she always does, but can’t. All I see is a mother who is mourning her son and wishing I was the one who died instead.
She opens one of the drawers to my dresser. It’s almost bare. “I guess you can wear these.” Her voice trails off as her eyes roam my room, spotting all of my piles of clothes that should be put away.
She doesn’t have to say anything. I can read her mind.
Mom rubs her temples. “There’s a sale at the mall. I think we should go. It would be good for you to get out of the house and get some vitamin D. It’s so dark in here, you’re going to get depressed.”
Her words are almost comical. As if I could feel any worse than I do right now. I’ve already reached rock bottom. I have no friends, I’ve failed at everything, and I don’t even have a future considering I’m another year away from my diploma. For everyone wondering what’s at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, it’s this.
“I don’t feel like it.” I press play on my movie, ready to let it consume my mind.
It doesn’t phase her. She walks over to the laptop and pushes it closed.
“Hey!”
Crossing her arms she says, “Get dressed and come downstairs.”
“I’m not going.”
Then she marches to my door, ready to walk out. “Yes, you are.”
I sit up. “Or what? You’ll drag me out of here? You’ll slap me again?”
She freezes.
“Then again, it didn’t change anything last time.”
She rubs her forehead.
“Did it make you feel better?”
“Stop!” Mom turns back around. This time, I see anger and devastation in her eyes. “You have no idea what I’m going through.”
“I’m pretty sure I do.”
She shakes her head before meeting my hard gaze and taking a deep trembling breath. “When Ethan died, I didn’t just lose him. I lost you too,” she pauses as her chest heaves. “You want to know why I get out of bed every morning and force a smile? Why I act okay? Why I keep moving forward? It’s because of you!”
I jump at her volume, catching my breath.
Me?
Her lip quivers. “I’m doing everything I can think of to bring you back to me, and I don’t know what else to do.” Her gaze drops. “Every day, you push me away, but I keep trying. I keep hoping that, maybe one day, you’ll come back to me.” Her teary eyes look at me. “I need you.”
My mother is standing in front of me more broken than I’ve ever seen her before. I stare at her and my anger starts to melt away. I never thought she acted this way because she missed me. I didn’t even consider that she was trying to connect with me. I spent so much time wishing Dad would say those words to me, I never realized I needed to hear them from Mom just as badly.
Tears filled my eyes, and I feel a sudden urge to confide in her. I need her too. I suck in the sharp air around me, gasping for anything to help me breathe, but I’m left suffocating. My head is spinning, and my chest is tight. I’m breathing fast, but it isn’t registering with my lungs. They’ve stopped working.
“The wreck was my fault.”
Mom sits down next to me on the bed, putting her arm around me. “That’s not true.”
“Yes, it is,” I cry.
She turns my face, forcing me to look at her. “If you only ever listen to one thing I say, let it be this. It was not your fault. You did not make him take off his seatbelt. You did not make him run that stop sign. You did not make his choices for him.”
“But what if–”
“But what if it isn’t your fault?” she says.
