Page 15 of Still Yours
Her scent. Herfuckingscent hits my nostrils again, and I nearly fall to my knees.
Smell is the greatest memory there is, and that mixture of vanilla and citrus recalls hiding under the bleachers after school and kissing her until both our bodies were imprinted into the dirt. Taking her to the Mercantile and swiping strawberry milkshake on her face before licking it off. The soundtrack of her laughter in my ears.
It brings back innocence. Freedom. The weightless future a sixteen-year-old envisions for themself.
I cut her off in the hallway.
Reaching past Noa, I open the front door a little too hard, nearly hitting her shoulder.
She leaps back in time, glaring at me through her lashes but stepping outside all the same.
Serves me right for trying to be a gentleman after training to be a raider for so long. I wasn’t trying to, but now I wish I didn’t dim that sparkle in her eyes.
“I assume you still want me here at six tomorrow morning? Or am I fired?” Noa waits for my response before descending the porch steps.“You’re good at that sort of thing, aren’t you?”
She asks it nonchalantly, but I notice how she works her jaw while I stare at her, one hand on the open door.
“You’re not fired.”
Noa’s face tightens like she wanted more from me than that. A rise, a spurt of insult, anything. She must sense pity in my voice, instead.
“You don’t have to keep me because you feel bad. I have other patients.” But her face darts to the window into the living room. Where Ma’s sitting.
Noa had months to reconcile her favorite English teacher with a devastating diagnosis. She’s been there for Ma in ways I haven’t. It isn’t fair, but I resent her for it. We have our history, but if she didn’t see me around and wondered about it, she’s impetuous enough to have alerted me, even if she hates me.
An unnatural cold envelops my body at the thought. Numbing and therapeutic as I stand across from a woman who haunts me, despises me, and still has me all at the same time.
“You have a routine with Ma.” I being to swing the door shut. “See you at six.”
I break our stare-off before I can register any wounded look on her face, firmly clicking the door closed.
“That went well.”
Ma’s wry tone comes through the hallway.
“How’d you expect it to go?” I ask.
Ma reclines on the couch, her thin body almost boneless with exhaustion and purple bags under her eyes. It’s frightening how much weight she’s lost.
“Don’t be doing that.” Her snippiness matches mine.
“Doing what?” I round to the bar cart in the dining room, needing a refill. Or three.
“Look at me all pitiful, like I’m a wounded deer you spotted on the road.”
The decanter’s lid clinks as I lift it off.
“I don’t think that.” I glance over my shoulder. “Because then I’d have to shoot you in a ditch to end your misery.”
My lips uptick at Ma’s snort. It’s nice that I can still make her laugh. My mother is the only person who handles my dark, mostly unnoticed humor.
Well, her and—someone else.
I look at the front door. Swallow more burning liquid.
“Still, I don’t need my grown son to stare at me like I’m already dead.” Ma grunts as she shifts to get more comfortable.“This is a bad spell, is all. I have good days, too. I’ve found the clinical trial to be so much easier on my body than chemo.”
“What clinical trial?” My focus zeroes in on her. I return to the living room with a full glass and take a seat on the sofa chair.
