Page 101 of Lighting the Lamp
“You knew, and you still let us go our whole life thinking Dad died of a heart attack. That it was just a random thing that happened. But it wasn’t, was it?” I take a shaky step toward her,my knee nearly buckling under me. “It was this, and you just… what? Thought I—no,wedidn’t deserve to know?”
“I was trying to protect all of you,” she says, voice breaking, arms crossed over her chest like she’s holding herself together.
“Well, congrats. That worked out real fucking well, didn’t it?”
Her tears finally fall, silent and slow. Some small, fractured part of me sees her pain, feels the guilt radiating off her like heat from an open flame, but I shove it down. I need to hurt someone. And right now, the only person here is her. I hate myself for it, but not enough to stop.
“I didn’t ask for this,” I snap, pacing the room with wild, painful steps.
Each stride grinds my joints together like bone on bone. My ankles roll slightly with every uneven shift, pain jolting up my calves like electric shocks. My whole body aches, but I can’t stay still. My chest is splitting open, and everything I’ve tried to hold back is pouring out like acid, every ugly thing I’ve never said out loud.
“I didn’t ask to get benched by my body. I didn’t ask to wake up one morning and suddenly not know if I’d be able to walk without pain.”
Despite that, it keeps coming. Every word cuts deeper than the last.
“I didn’t ask to wonder if every fucking twinge in my knees means I’m falling apart from the inside out. Or to feel like I’m disappearing one joint at a time.”
My breath is coming too fast now, panic climbing into my throat like it’s got claws. My skin itches, tight and overheated, and my legs feel like they’re carrying someone else’s weight. My hands curl into aching fists that don’t even close all the way without resistance.
“I was happy for the first time in a long time. I was really happy. With hockey. With her.” My voice cracks again, raw andragged. “She deserves more than this. She deserves someone who’s whole and won’t be a liability. Someone who won’t wake up one morning and realize his body has declared war on itself.”
I glance at my mom—this woman who raised me, who kept this secret buried like a landmine—and the betrayal slices through me all over again.
“How could you not tell me?” I ask, lower now, almost begging. “How could you let me walk around my whole life, not knowing what might be waiting for me?”
Momma rises slowly, carefully, and walks over, but I don’t look at her because if I do, I’ll break.
“She loves you.”
“She doesn’t know,” I bite out. “Not the complete picture. Not yet, and if she knew I’m never going to be normal again, she wouldn’t stay.”
I finally look at her, my vision swimming. My voice is barely mine anymore, just a whisper dragged through broken glass.
“How can I ask her to love someone who can’t even promise he’ll be okay tomorrow? I can’t even promise I’ll be able to lace up my damn skates again.”
The weight of it crashes over me, heavy and suffocating. It feels like something too big and too broken is trying to burst out and crack my chest wide open. My fingers twitch like they’re remembering what it feels like to hold a stick, to feel the puck slam against my pads, but now even that memory feels out of reach. A tremor rolls through me, and I brace my hands on my thighs to keep from collapsing, but everything hurts, shaking under the strain of pretending I’m not already crumbling. And worse than the pain is the shame because what kind of man asks someone to stay when the best version of him might already be gone?
Momma reaches up and rests her hand against my chest—right over my heart, over the place that feels like it’s collapsing inon itself. I flinch at the contact, not because it hurts physically—though everything does—but because I’m afraid she’ll feel what I already know.
That whatever held me together before is coming apart. That the strong, unshakable son she raised is slipping through her fingers, and no one can stop it. Not even me.
“You’re still you, sick or not. And the people who love you? The ones worth keeping? They don’t want the perfect version. They want the real one.”
I want to believe her, but I shake my head, hot, shameful tears slipping free. I scrub at my face like I can erase them, but the movement makes my shoulder throb, joints pulsing beneath the skin like they’re too swollen to hold together.
“It’s not just about love,” I whisper, my breath catching. “It’s about living. And I don’t know how to do that with this shadow following me.”
She pulls me into her arms, and I nearly cry out at the contact. Every inch of me is hypersensitive, on fire from the inside. But I don’t resist. Instead, I bury my face in her shoulder and let the floodgates open. The grief, anger, and heartbreak all tangle together in one aching sob I’ve been holding back since the first symptoms hit.
Because I’m not who I was, and I don’t know who I’m becoming. For now, I let my mother hold me like I’m still hers to protect because even if I can’t see the way forward yet, at least I’m not standing in the dark alone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Alise
“Iswear to God, if you don’t finish typing the menu and RSVP cards in the next twenty minutes, the wedding is canceled, and we’re eloping,” Ramona snaps, one hand buried in a pile of envelopes, the other gripping a gold calligraphy pen like it’s the only thing holding her back from a full spiral.
“You aren’t eloping,” I murmur, eyes locked on my laptop screen. “The aunties would revolt, not to mention Cooper will throw a fit at not being able to see you come down the aisle in a pretty white dress.”
