Page 80 of The Cruelest Kind of Hate
“You’re making a mistake.” I don’t try to rip my arm away, because there’s nowhere in this world that I could possibly go without Gage finding me.
His eyes take on the color of the impending storm clouds above. “I’m not. There’s nothing you can say that’ll make me change my mind. I wasn’t able to save my brother, but I’m able to save your family.”
“I can’t let you do this, Gage.”
“Are you going to stand here and tell me that you don’t want it? Are you going to stand here and lie to my face?”
This is about your mom, Cali. It’s not about you. It’s not about your bruised dignity. It’s not about your fucked-up self-punishment agenda. He’s offering you an escape. He’s offering you freedom. He’s offering you a chance at peace. And most of all, he’s offering your mom a chance to live out the last of her days in the best environment for her condition. Why aren’t you taking it?
There’s a small voice screaming with the same desperation in the back of my head, a little voice that once belonged to a girl who was forced to grow up too quickly.
Help me! Please, help me! I can’t do this by myself!
Gage brings me into his solid chest, and my half-exerted flailing is no match for the unbeatable strength of the two arms that pin me into submission. He holds me to that life force slamming against his ribs, so hard and fast that I can feel it shock my own lifeless heart like a defibrillator.
“I know you’re used to doing everything by yourself, but you don’t have to anymore. You can give me all that pain, Spitfire. You can give me all that weight, and I’ll carry it for the rest offucking time if it means that you’ll finally be able to breathe easy again,” he whispers into the alcove of my neck, petting my hair like he’s done countless other times.
“Why do you care so much?” I hiccup.
And then, as if Gage has been preparing for this moment his entire life, he says, “You’re my everything, Calista Cadwell. My morning, afternoon, and night. My beginning, middle, and end. My life doesn’t make sense without you in it. I wake up foryou, Spitfire. I breathe foryou. My heart beats foryou. It’s always going to be you, no matter where we are in time. It’s always going to be you, even if we’re oceans apart. It’s always going to be you in whatever universe we find ourselves in.”
The beat of Gage’s heart and his confession are the only things that tear me from the nightmarish landscape of my mind, reminding me that I’m here, in the present, and that my story isn’t over yet. I don’t even know if I’ve digested everything he just unloaded on me. But I got the gist of it, and the gist is enough to make me cry like a baby.
The tears surpass streams and rush out in a flood, drenching every inch of my skin in their unfortunate path, and I cling to the back of Gage’s hoodie like he’s a porous rock keeping me above water in the writhing waves of a merciless hurricane.
“Help me,” I beg. “Please help me.”
27
A LETTER TO MY MOM
CALISTA
The minute I saw my mother’s lifeless body lying in that hospital bed, I wanted to leave. Not because I don’t love her, but because I love her so fucking much that it physically pains me to be in the same room as her while she’s suffering right before my eyes. I honestly shouldn’t have left her side, but I wouldn’t have survived alone with her—alone with mythoughts.
I’ve visited her on and off while she’s been in the hospital, bringing Teague with me on occasion, but this is the first time I’ve really come in to sit down and be with her. I’ve been too much of a coward to face her.
No matter what I do, nothing will magically cure her. I have to live the rest of my life as she struggles to keep her head above water, and I’d give anything in the world to be able to switch places with her.
After the talk with Gage regarding my mother’s expenses, I knew I needed to come see her before she was moved.
I clutch the potted geraniums—my mother’s favorite flower—to my chest, hypnotized by the clacking of my heeled boots against the tiles. I make my way to her room on autopilot, havingalready memorized the tearstained path from when she was admitted. As soon as I enter that cold, sterile chamber, anxiety strikes a chord within me while nausea tears through my restless stomach. It’s enough to bog me down, demanding more exertion from my noodle-like muscles just to simply put her get-well gift on her nightstand. The sky is completely dark outside, shunning the moon’s rays from coruscating over the spotless floor.
I slowly drag a chair over to my mother’s bedside, perching on its mint-green edge like I’m waiting to eject myself from it at any given moment. Even though it has enough cushion to support my back—maybe even invite me for a much-needed nap—I don’t let myself indulge in the comfort it offers. My mother sleeps soundlessly in her bed, arms folded over her midsection, her breath so quiet that I’m not even sure she’s really breathing.
I follow the slight movement of her chest, admiring how peaceful she looks with her hair moved away from her face. Even though I want to reach for her hand, I don’t want to wake her. The surprising steadiness of my breath belies the emotional turmoil rampaging through my body, starting with the deafening soundtrack of my hummingbird heart and ending with the abysmal thoughts trying to weasel into my brain tissue.
My jaw cracks to accommodate a swallow, one that barely soothes my sandpaper throat. “Hi, Mom,” I finally say after a three-minute silence, feeling the tears I promised myself I wouldn’t shed start to fester in my eyes.
“I know you’re sleeping and won’t be able to hear any of this, but I just wanted to…I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am that I couldn’t save you.”
Saying all these words into an empty space, for no one to hear, somehow makes them more painful, and that false steadiness I came into this one-sided conversation with has taken two point three seconds to slip from my fingers. I don’t know why Ithought doing this would be a good idea. I don’t know why I thought I’d be able to recite any words of substance without breaking down into tears.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, hoping to wring out the tears that flee down my cheeks, and I’m not fast enough to stifle the cries that desecrate the tranquility of the hospital room. They’re louder than the slight percussion of rain that’s plinking against the fogged window.
Everything hurts. I feel like I’m made of glass, on the cusp of shattering. I feel like a little girl again crying for my mother to make things better, running into her arms for safety and comfort.
“I miss you, Mom. I miss when you would hold me and tell me everything’s okay. I feel like I can’t do any of this without you. I don’t know how to be a good big sister. I don’t know how to give Teague the childhood he deserves. I’m so lost…” My words peter off, desperately searching for a home that’s been prematurely taken from them.
