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I bit at my bottom lip, my eyebrows drawing together as I forced myself to nod. “It’s been a rough day, but I think I’m okay.”
I wasn’t. Not at all. But I had to believe one day I would be.
“You know you can just ask if you need something. Someone to talk to or whatever you need.”
Meaningfully, I smiled at her. “Yeah, I do. Thank you, Clara.”
“Hey, us girls have to stick together, right?”
The rest of my Saturday shift dragged. I couldn’t wait for the day to be over.
Finally, after three, Karina told me I could cut out.
I plodded out to my car and slumped into the driver’s seat. I just sat there, staring at the blank wall of the restaurant my car faced, my sight blurry with the tears that I was constantly fighting, as if they’d just become a permanent part of me. I felt so worn, so frail, like I would crack from the smallest blow. Above all of that, I felt alone. I knew it’d never been Jared’s intention, but this huge piece of me felt abandoned. It throbbed and ached, begging to be filled.
Wiping my eyes, I started my car and pulled out onto the street. Instead of heading toward home, I turned toward my parents’ house because I couldn’t stand the thought of being by myself in the desolate apartment, wasn’t ready to fully give myself over to the memories of Jared inhabiting that place.
I parked in their driveway and climbed from the car. The neighborhood was quiet and the air was warm, although the scorching summer had finally passed. Swallowing deeply, I pushed myself forward, wondering if stepping through my parents’ door would be the final blow, because I didn’t know how to go on like this anymore.
I was splintering.
Breaking.
Now it was just a matter of holding the pieces together.
I knocked once and pushed the door open. “Mom?” I called as I poked my head inside.
“Aly?” She wasn’t surprised this time. She sounded almost relieved.
I edged in just as Mom rounded the corner, coming to meet me. She took one look at my face and hers fell. “Oh, Aly.” She quickened as she approached, never hesitating to pull me into her arms. “Come here, sweetheart.”
Her warmth rushed over me, and I buried my face in her neck, could do nothing but let myself go. My pain bubbled up and escaped as these racking sobs, loud and uncontainable. Part of me had an uncontrollable instinct to hide this from her, because I’d hidden him for so long, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Shh… ,” she murmured, ru
Her comfort only made me cry harder. “Mom.” In her name was the torment I felt, a plea for her to somehow tell me that this would all be okay. And she knew none of it, had no idea what I was really going through. But I needed her.
“Why don’t we go in the family room and sit down and talk?” she offered.
I nodded and she shifted her hold to my waist, supporting me as she led us to the couch. She lowered us to sitting, refusing to let me go. She tucked me close and I curled into her side. She held on to me like she’d done when I was a little girl. For a long while she rocked me and let me weep into her shirt as she emitted these soft whispers of encouragement, promising me it would be okay. I just didn’t know how it could ever be. I was so scared. So scared of doing this alone.
“Is this about Gabe?” she finally asked.
Tears ran down and streaked my face, as if expelling them would somehow purge a part of this pain. My mouth opened wide as the confession bled free. “No, Mom, it was never about Gabe.” I squeezed my eyes closed, feeling something tearing loose inside me.
A small, sympathetic breath seeped from her nose, and she caressed her hand down my back. “I didn’t think so.”
I guess she always did know when I was lying.
“Are Dad and Aug here?” I asked because I really didn’t think I could handle having an audience for this.
“No, sweetie, it’s just the two of us. Your dad drove out with him to one of his day training camps. You can tell me whatever you need to.”
I wasn’t ashamed. Still there were some things I just wasn’t ready to say. But it was time I finally said his name.
I rolled a little so my head was on her shoulder, looking out the windows over the backyard where it was all peace and tranquility, contrasting the disorder in my heart. I shook as I filled my lungs with air. “It was Jared, Mom.”
It was always Jared.
The air between us shifted from this soft sympathy to a stu
Her voice was rough but knowing. “He hadn’t just been at your apartment for a few days, had he?”
Slowly, I shook my head, wetting my lips as I looked up at my mom in admission. “No.”
Mom’s eyes filled with awareness, her words full of meaning. “So he’s the one.”
He was the one. The only one.
I rested my head back on her shoulder. “I love him so much. I think I have since I was a little girl… but I never imagined anything could feel like this.”
Silence took us over while we sat together and let the truth sink in.
“Are you upset?” I finally asked.
“Am I upset that you fell in love with Jared or am I upset that you kept it from me?”
I winced, sensing her frustration, the disappointment, but there was no condemnation.
Finally she sighed. “Of course I’m not mad, Aly. I just don’t understand why you felt the need to keep it from me. For God’s sake, didn’t you and Christopher think I’d want to know that Jared was back in town? I worried about him for years, and it turns out he’d been hiding out at your apartment?”
She looked at me seriously. “That day when I stopped by… it was so obvious that there was something going on between you two… or at least that you both wanted there to be. But then you lied to me about that other boy.” She shrugged in something that seemed like defeat. “I don’t get it. When was I ever the mom you couldn’t confide in?”
“I’m sorry, Mom… but don’t you remember what it was like after Jared was sent away? It was like no one was allowed to mention him. Dad was so angry with him. Do you think Christopher and I didn’t realize he blamed Jared for finally driving Neil completely away? And neither of us knew how long Jared was going to stay. In the begi
No doubt, because of me.
That place inside me quivered and swelled, crying out, because without him, I was so empty. It was his mark, the imprint he’d left behind.
I gulped around the heaviness in my chest before I continued. “Everything changed when he showed up at our apartment. It was like this crush I always had on him instantly became something so intensely real.”
A part of me realized that it’d become real the night when he was sent away, when I’d understood true heartbreak for the first time in my life at the age of fourteen. But maybe it took the two of us coming face-to-face as adults that brought it to fruition. Maybe it took our completion to shatter us wholely.
“He became my world, Mom. Living without him has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
“I don’t know if I even want to know how long you were hiding this from me.” Fidgeting, she inclined her head, making it clear that she really did want to know.
“He was there for three months.”
I was always hiding things from her. And I still was because I didn’t know how to voice it.
“God, Aly.” She slowly shook her head, sadness coloring her words. “And I have to guess he left pretty quickly after I found him there?”
“Yeah, it all fell apart that night. He blames himself for all of it. He doesn’t believe he’s allowed happiness, so he destroys it the second he feels a flicker of it.”
I had felt him sabotaging us that night. He ruined us, just because he believed he was supposed to. “All it took was me telling him I loved him, and he was gone.” I figured I’d spare Mom all the details of that night because, in the end, that was all it really came down to. Jared didn’t believe he deserved to be loved.