Page 408 of Eternal
But then again… They changed so many pages before giving the journal back to me. So much was missing. So much was… rewritten.
What is true? What isn’t?
Why would she never say his name? And why would she hide it here, folded inside these pages, coded into lines and letters like a secret language meant only for her?
Did she ever want me to find this?
I don’t know.
I flip over one of the clippings. The paper is worn, yellowing, marked with her tight, neat handwriting.
For L.S. Continue the mission if I fall.
And below that, signed: A.Amane.
My mother.
I don’t know what to believe. Was Luxis Shiraz her source? Her contact? Someone she trusted?
And from the corner of the living room, the video keeps playing. The static hum, the soft, looping video.
“Do you promise you’ll never forget it?”
“Promise, Mama. Never.”
My knees buckle.
I drop to the floor. The poetry book pressed against my chest, and then, from the TV, the music starts.
Somewhere over the rainbow…
Her voice. Then mine. Singing together.
I clutch Sunny and press my face into him. I cry, quiet and broken, and I sing. Softly. Desperately. The words are barely there.
Way up high…
The images flicker in my head. Mom when I was little. Mom when she was still trying. Mom when she was gone but not dead. Mom when she disappeared inside herself.
And the thought creeps in cruelly.
If I’d never been born, would she have been happy?
Would she have stayed in Jordan, with her poems and her brothers and her garden? Would she have had a quiet life? A gentler one? Did I break her, only by existing?
I know it’s not fair. But I can’t stop the thought, I can’t stop the ache.
I loved her. Even when she couldn’t love me back. Even when she was gone. I covered her with blankets when she passed out. I cleaned up after her. I sat beside her. I waited. For her to hug me, to tell me she was going to be okay. To just… be my mom.
And I hate her. I hate her for leaving. I hate her for destroying herself and our family.
But more than that, I hate the ones who did this to her. The ones who hurt her, the ones who changed her, the ones who broke everything we were.
I lift my head and grab my phone. Hands shaking.Brian.
I type quickly:
Me
