Page 83 of Unless It's You
I nod, even though my body’s screaming against it, and will my feet to follow Stella as she enters Mum’s flat. I take one step inside. Scott and one other man are wrapping mugs and dishes in paper before tucking them in a medium-sized brown box. I have a vision of Mum in the kitchen, standing on the chipped black-and-white tiled floor, smoking, drinking instant coffee, draping her arms around one of her many boyfriends, ignoring me.
What would I possibly want to save? There are no good memories in this flat. Nothing I want. I should probably sign up for a decade of therapy to work through all these issues.
“They should get rid of it all.”
“You sure?” Stella touches my arm lightly, and I nod. “Okay. Hear that, Scott?”
“Sure did. All donate or trash.” He pauses his wrapping and looks at me. “If we see anything sentimental, we’ll put it aside for you to look at, okay? Just in case.”
“I guess.”
“What about all the books? Your mum was quite the voracious romance reader, huh?”
Stella spins her head to the bookcase. One of the shelves is almost identical to the one in my flat with the books I’d given Mum.
My stomach twists in shame, for trying so hard all those years, trying to connect with her by reading her smutty romance novels. Fine. It wasn’t torture. Some of them had actual plot, and the love stories? Top-notch. Maybe I kept reading them even when I realized it wouldn’t be something for us to bond over. Maybe I’m a true romantic at heart. Fuck if I know.
But Mum never acknowledged my attempts. Those desperate olive branches I offered to my own mother, which always splintered and stabbed me.
“Donate them.” I don’t need her castoffs. The bloke nods.
“You want to go peek in the bedrooms?” Stella asks.
“No.” I’m done.
“Then let’s get out of here for a bit.”
I stride out of the flat, down the stairs, and out the front door of Mum’s building, Stella on my heels. There’s a wooden bench a few buildings down and I collapse onto it, head in my hands. A gentle breeze waves past, caressing my neck. It’s beautiful out, cooler here than in London, but sunny. How dare the sun show up in Newcastle on this day, this miserable bookend of my childhood?
Stella doesn’t say a word, just drops down next to me on the splintered bench and puts her hand on my back, rubbing comforting circles. I should tell her to stop, to leave me alone, to leave in general, but her presence here means more than I can handle admitting.
I can’t wait until this day is over. Until all of this is done, and I can put it behind me.
Thanks to Stella.She is the only reason why I am here today, with a few days to spare from the landlord’s thirty-day deadline. And it’s not about Mum’s belongings. It’s more that I’m taking care of what I’m supposed to, unlike how my mum managed her life.
“You okay?” Stella asks.
I nod, but involuntarily picture Stella and Ben kissing at the pub. My stomach turns and I contract my abs to make the nausea go away. I’m not okay.
This might be the woman I love, but Stella and I have no future. Not with the past she has with Ben. Not with the past I have with him, either, and the future in which I literally have no biological family left. Just Ben, Robin, and Simon.
I fell in love with Stella. But just before I hit the bottom of that seemingly endless pit of butterflies and soft touches and pleasure and joy, I grabbed the ladder and started climbing back up. I’m still working to escape. Out of necessity. Now I just have to move on and bury whatever it is that’s there. I don’t want to face her tomorrow for the shoot or Friday in Skye. I’m sure I’m not strong enough.
But she deserves it. And I need to.
After these things are done, this will be over. I’ll sign off on her bucket list and we can go our separate ways.
I have to hold it together long enough to get through all of that. I have to not let myself fall further into her.
I twist my hair in my fingers, my head bowed on the bench, elbows digging into my thighs. The problem is, I’m having a hard time separating what I’m feeling about Mum and her flat, with what I’m feeling about Stella, with what I’m feeling about Ben and his parents. It’s all twisted together like some mass of feral vines climbing up my body, and I don’t know what’s causing the grim feeling in the pit of my stomach.
We sit on that bench in Borinwick for almost two hours, only moving to take a walk around the rundown neighborhood. Stella doesn’t try to make small talk, and for that I’m thankful. The movers stream in and out of the flat, carrying boxes and furniture and lamps and loading the truck, its back gate gaping open like a monster gobbling up memories. I watch them feed my childhood into the truck, and feel nothing but desolation and loneliness, much like I did growing up.
Scott emerges and gestures to us. I stand and head back in his direction, with Stella striding next to me.
“We found this.” He nods to his feet, where there’s a beat-up old box covered with peeling brown tape. The top is labeledEthan’s Memoriesin faded black marker.
A breath catches in my throat.Mum had a memory box for me?
