Page 59 of Sorry, We're Closed

So, it is true. She is selling. She is getting rid of everything I have worked on in a feeble attempt to fix what shattered years ago. Everything from my hanging text message last night; Gwen this morning, Avory leaving, Avory’s kisses and hands all over my delicate frame boils to the surface, and when a kettle is overfilled, it boils over.

“Did you ever consider how I felt in this? I’ve lived and breathed this café for years, for a chance to fix this—us! I want my mother back! The woman who would dance in her flowing dresses, the mother who would hold me when anything went wrong, the mother who actually gave a fuck about her son!”

Only once the words leave my lips do I realise the tears that are rolling down my face. The salty streams fill the rims of my glasses, making the statue of a woman standing in front of me blur. I’m glad I can’t see her reaction, because I can already feel my legs beginning to collapse in on myself.

I don’t know where this need to stand up to her comes from, but even if he is ducking underneath the counter, shirtless and hearing the truth of my situation for the first and last time, I can feel the ghost of Avory’s touch all over me. His touch lingers around my hands with the way he holds them, kisses the back of them, and how they fit so perfectly.

Her powerful, crackling exhales are all I can hear alongside her slow and haunting steps. Click, click, click against the floors. I’ve been in this position before, but the clinking of platform boots and all their buckles bring comfort to me, rather than these fateful heels.

She finally pillars in front of me, her nose only inches from mine as her eyes burn through me. Eyeliner collects in the corner of her eyes, and that’s the only thing that makes it possible to stare back at her – I have a new focus rather than the looming thought of what’s about to be spat through her thinning lips.

She exhales once more through her dark lined lips before speaking, her voice low, slow and only for me to hear, or so she thinks.

“No, Sawyer.Youdidn’t consider howIfelt when you ripped our family apart with your little fucking secret, which you just couldn’t keep quiet about.”

She jabs into my chest once more with her sharp, press on nails. My volume rises quickly in response, causing a crack to interrupt my words, but I somehow still get my words to spill out.

“Well, I’m sorry, Tracey, for believing that I could trust my family with a discovery I had made about myself, where on earth did I getthatidea from?”

“It ismotherto you, Sawyer!”

“Is it?”

Breathe, breathe, breathe. Avory shouldn’t have to see this. See us like this. I release myself from her deathly stare, turning away from her and raising my palms to my head. I begin threading my fingers through my hair, but this is quickly interrupted. Her hands reach for my wrists and wrap their dry and spindly fingers around, gripping tight enough that my fingers instantly release my curls. She pulls me roughly, forcing me to face her as she tucks my hands to my chest and refuses to release me. Every word is spit with such venom.

“Maybe if you weren’t some fucking gay boy, I’d feel like your mother. Maybe if you could just change, I could act like your mother. Maybe if you didn’t mess around with that fucking guitarist, then you’d have a mother.”

“So, you’re admitting that you don’t see me as your son?” I yell, my lips so close to hers that I wouldn’t be surprised if some of her deep red lipstick has rubbed off on me.

Silence sits for far too long before her words strike a punch in every direction possible, yet none of them hurt because everything just feels numb.

“Sawyer Sombre, we may share a last name, but as long as you carry on your life in the way you think is acceptable, you will be no son of mine.”

She releases my wrists while throwing me aside, causing me to stumble into a nearby table, the legs screeching across the tiles. Her eyes refuse to look at mine as she snatches the files, which I never remember putting down, and marches her way out the way she came in.

The door’s slam ricochets across the café, which now only feels temporary, and all I can do is breathe. I don’t know what I’m looking at, I don’t know what I’m touching, I don’t know what I’m tasting, I do know what I’m hearing, though – platform boots with an array of buckles and chains.

Avory.

My vision is suddenly filled with Avory, his shirt hanging over his shoulders and messily buttoned up, his hands brushing across my shoulders, down my lack of biceps and resting on my forearms. My nose and mouth are washed in his cologne, and I want to sink into the tiles below. I want to sink, only remembering all my senses now because all of them are somehow linking me back to Avory. I would struggle in this moment until it causes me to succumb to it.

“Sawyer, I’m going to put my arms around you, okay? I’m going to hold you until you tell me not to.”

Avory’s voice is my sole focus as he does exactly as he says. His arms surround me, and his head rests on top of mine. Slowly, my arms regain their feeling, and I wind them around him, feeling his warmth through my layers.

Right here.

This is what is going to make him leaving feel even worse than I ever imagined it already could be, because once I lose him, I lose everything. The comfort, the happiness, the realisation of my true self which he has taught me through his absolute freedom and nature within this world, will be ripped from us and I will be alone. I cannot force him to stay, to stop him from following his dream, but I cannot fathom thatmydream is off in only a couple of days to follow his own.

His consistent breathing reminds me to do the same thing, and over time, our breathing begins to match. As my breathing remains consistent, and my thoughts begin to clear, my words muffle into his chest.

“You need to go.”

I take as long as humanly possible, but I pull myself apart from Avory. His hands rest in mine, but I refuse to weave our fingers together in our usual way. I can’t.

“Sawyer, you don’t need to be alone right now. Why don’t you come back to mine for the night? Just while we think of a plan?”

I can’t conjure up anything, except the same four words.

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