AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And then she smiles. It’s volatile, and cruel, and it fucking rips my heart right out of my ribcage.
“Mom, I—” I’m in trouble. Please, help me. My lips move, but no sound comes out, not even when she scrunches up her brows in a question. This is why I’m No One. I grimace inwardly. Because my brain fills with cotton when my core is hurting, and all thoughts and feelings mingle until I lose track of what it is I felt in the first place. Brushing a hand over my chest, I try to ease the erratic pounding of my heart.
“I know,” she mumbles thickly. For the shortest of seconds I think that she really knows, that she really has been following this shit show I’m running, but then her eyes water and she sniffs around her cigarette. “I should be a better parent, Phoenix. I know it, and I hate myself for my failure. For not being there for you.” She breathes out smoke and our eyes meet. Her lips quiver. “It’s just so hard, baby. It’s so fucking hard, but I don’t want you to leave me.” This time a wet choke spills past her mouth, and her body jerks. “I'm trying to do what's best, I don't want to see you broken. You know that, right? I want you to be happy."
“You've already said that. But I’m not going anywhere, Mom.” Dropping my bag onto the floor, I slide down onto my knees in front of her. I circle her delicate shoulders with my arms and pull her seated frame closer to my chest. She buries her face into my armpit as she squeezes my hands tight, shielding herself from the world with my body as her armor. And she weeps. Long, wet sobs, altered with unintelligible mumbles. Time ticks slowly while she cries, and I ignore the forming ache in the small of my back from bending forward, my chin resting on the back of her head. Finally she pats my hand. Her sobs have quieted, and when she lifts her face her eyes clear up, a myriad of emotions reflecting through the fog of emotions. I brace myself while getting up to stretch my painful back and shoulders.
“You wouldn’t go anywhere, would you?” Mom turns over her shoulder and our eyes meet. Her tone has become sharper. I shrug, unease creeping up. “Nah, you wouldn’t go anywhere,” she decides. “You know what Adrien said before he left? You know what yourDadsaid when he left?” When I don’t reply, she snorts. “That I was suffocating him. That my pain was too much. ThatIwas too much.” She tosses her beer can into the sink and the remaining splatters of golden poison dirty the counter. Its sudden, tin sound makes me quiver.
“I—I didn’t know that.” Shetsksinto the thick air, flipping me off.
“Get me another beer, babe, will you.” I hesitate, knowing that I should tell her no, knowing that I shouldn’t feed this addiction of hers. But it’s not that easy. It never is when love’s involved.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I’ll do it myself.” Pulling the chair abruptly back and nearly hitting me with it, she stumbles off and toward the fridge. “You know, I’m still the one in charge. This ismybody.” Our eyes collide, hers dark and sharp. “This ismylife.” She takes a huge gulp without a single blink.
This is hard. She’s been through hell, and it’s still so fresh. Maybe she’s right. Maybe she deserves to fall off the tracks, only to be brought back onto them when she’s ready. Maybe I am just as selfish in here, as I am out there. My eyes dart toward the window and I flinch at the outside world.
“Mom, today, I—” I can’t say it. I let out a deep sigh, words forming in my brain. I try again. Mom blinks, looking argumentative.
“What?”
“I’ve done some stupid things today. Please don’t hate me for it.”And now they all want me dead.My lips ghost the words, because she’s no longer listening. A cruel chortle falls from her lips and fills my hesitation, and she turns her body fully toward me.
“Hate you? I don’t hate you, my son.” Her lighter flicks, followed by a sharp inhale. “Gosh, you’re so much like him.” The words tumble out of her mouth, her gaze searching mine. “Weak. You’re weak, Phoenix, and selfish.”
“No—” Her words trickle inside my corrupted mind, nestling inside my heart like venom. And it hurts. Because reality always does. “Those things I did today… I did it for us.”
And for Dad.
“I know, baby, I know you did. You’re trying hard, but they’ve all left us to rot here.”
“Mom—” I don’t even know what I want to say, but she’s not listening to me anyway, instead staring dully into the void. Her voice has dimmed to a soft, unintelligible mumbling, retreating from our conversation. To prove that point, she dismisses me with a wave of her cigarette, eyes back on the tv. “Now go to bed, you look like a living corpse.” Swallowing an apology, I pull my hoodie over my curls. As I make my way outside the kitchen, I stop behind her and look. At her huddled frame, her messy clothes, her dried out skin. It’s the first time since Dad vanished that I wish I’d never received his letter. Because it’s this belief, thishope, that justifies my corrupted choices, and is the only reason I can look at myself in the mirror. We’re surviving, is what we are. And in the name of survival, I allow myself to be a fraud. But I know that someday, some time, when I least expect it, this will all come crashing down.
You’ve chained me to the enemy.
I’m stuck here with Mom. God, I hate myself for even thinking it. No, I’ll get her into rehab and she’ll be better. And then it will be just her and me, and it will be enough. It’s got to be enough.
It’s dark inside my bedroom—my safe haven—and I intend to keep it that way. I’m too tired. Besides, I know every single spot here, every single drawing I pinned to my wall.
I need my pencils.
Blindly searching for them on my desk, they feel cool and grounding in my twitching grip. I really should grab a shower and call it a fucking night, but even that feels like too much effort. My phone plays Simon and Garfunkel’sSound of Silence, and it’s making me fall still. Finally.
“Hello darkness, my old friend, I've come to talk with you again…”
Oh, Dad, I miss you so, so much. Why didn’t you take me with you?
The whooshing sound of the striking match lights up the vanilla scented candle and bathes the room in a soft twilight. It’s the only light I can bear when my thoughts swirl around like a monsoon, because it takes away the sharp edges of all that’s lacking— space, furniture, juststuff. Apart from my desk, with its laptop and messy pile of drawings, there’s not much here. Some books from my favorite artists—Dali and Picasso—and a small box filled with old photos. If we had more money, I would love to have picked up photography. There’s something fascinating about vision, the way we see through our eyes and into this world, the way we can capture those moments, twist and turn them into something real. The candle flickers as a waft of vanilla embraces the cold of my bedroom. I let it invade my nostrils while I listen to the end of the song. The flickering shadows on the wall tease the shapes of the same face that has been haunting me for months now. Kai Carrington. The name as arrogant as the man, a fancy one-liner filled with wealth and privilege. My fingers caress the drawings in the dark. How often have I tried to portray that gorgeous, angular face with the rich, perfectly arched eyebrows and those long, thick eyelashes?
Oh, how Kai is even more beautiful from up close, and oh, how that makes me want to shrivel back into the deepest of shadows. He’s everything I’m not, and it makes me feel like a Monet painting, splintered and split. As if startled by my own comparison I pull my probing fingers back, and automatically they search my desk in need to feel the pencils, the paper, the drawing. Needing to reassure me that I’m still human.
After today I’m not so sure anymore.
I am no killer.
What if I’d hit that button?
Seeing those families all together during their picnic earlier, laughing and eating and drinking under the cherry trees. It stirred something in me. I so desperately want it. A home. Someone who’s on my side. Someone who wantsme.
