Page 41 of Break Me
Not with Mom…
Tess is still angry I left with Benji last night, and I know that makes me a shitty friend. Dumont wants to see me this weekend and I’ve been ignoring him, which makes me a shitty lay.
But right now, I’m being a good daughter, and that’s enough.
I curl up around Mom, and she moves beneath me, her gaunt frame all sharp edges and hard lines.
She turns in the bed to face me, and my eyes meet her blue ones, watery but still sharp.
“Mom,” I whisper, swallowing back the sob that threatens to come up. If I let it, if I let it go just like that, I won’t ever stop crying and that’s why I’ve been avoiding this room. Why I’ve been avoiding her.
I don’t look at the feeding tube that’s through her nose, down her throat. I just keep my eyes on hers as she reaches out a shaky hand and runs it down my cheek.
“Ava, babe,” she whispers. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
My throat gets tighter and I let her pull me into her, laying my head on her chest, listening to the slow beat of her heart. Too slow. Painfully slow.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whisper, the words creaking out of my throat. I don’t even know if she can actually hear me. If she’s still awake.
She doesn’t respond for a moment, but then she takes a deep breath and she does.
“It’s okay, babe.” I swear I can hear her smile. “Remember how we used to go to Starbucks every weekend, at the crack of dawn before your dad was up?”
Despite myself, despite the hole that’s forming in my chest, I nod, half-laughing, half-sobbing. We did that until a few months ago, when she was too sick to leave the house. Even then, we still had hope.
Even then, we felt certain she’d be beating this.
I still think that because I can’t not think it, even as all the evidence points to the contrary.
She breathes in, the sound strangely raspy. Or maybe not so strangely. She’s dying, I remind myself, so I can feel the pain of the words. So I can feel the sharp sting of them. She’s reminiscing on something that will never happen again.
I close my eyes tight, still against her chest as she strokes my hair back.
“Those were my favorite times, Ava,” she says quietly. “With you in the passenger seat, and that big smile on your face when you got the biggest iced coffee known to man into your hands.”
I hold my breath, knowing that when I exhale, the tears forming behind my eyes are going to fall whether I want them to or not.
“I want you to always do that,” she continues.
I squeeze my eyes, not daring to open them. “Do what?” I ask her, my voice shaking. “Get a big ass iced coffee?”
She stops stroking my hair and pulls back, so her eyes are on mine. “No,” she begins, then her dry lips pull into a smile. “Well, yeah, if you want it. But I hope you always find joy in the little things, Ava.” She taps my nose in a playful gesture. “I know you’re grateful for everything your father and I have given you, and God do I know how much you like dropping money on clothes, but keep that happiness for the small things, too.”
I think of Benji down the hall, probably in my room by now. For a split second, I want my mom to know about him. I want her to meet him. I want to leap off of her bed, run down the hall, and drag his big ass in here. Even though he can be a dick, I have no doubt he would be a perfect gentleman to my mother.
But he hasn’t even asked about her, even though I know he knows.
He hasn’t asked once.
And besides that, I don’t know him. I don’t know shit about him. And even if my mom never meets him, what does it matter anyway? She’s never going to meet the man I’ll end up marrying anyhow, if I ever do marry. She’ll never meet Dumont, who has been there for me as much as I’ve been there for him, in our own weird way.
I nod, biting my lip to keep the tears in. I’m supposed to be strong for her. I’m not supposed to be crying right now. This is Mom’s time.
Mom’s death.
But the tears flow more anyway, and I can’t hold in my sob. My chest shakes, and my shoulders heave up and down with the grief, with knowing soon, this will be over, and soon, I won’t have a mother.
I won’t have anyone to talk me off the ledge, to tell me what to do when it comes to stupid professors and stupid Canadian boys. I won’t have anyone to help me figure out what the fuck I want to do with my life, which so far has revolved around the least productive things in the world.
