For the next four hours, I sat patiently on the window sill of my bedroom reading a book. I had done this everyday for the past two weeks, ripping through them on a daily basis. They all came from the same shelf of my closet, labeled emotional. These were my go to books. I had never had a need to read them because of reality until my dad died. Before they were just books I needed after other books, now they were my my escape.
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My mom came into the room around chapter twenty-five of my current book.
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“ Dinner’s almost ready, can you come set the table please?”
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Although my mother insisted that everything go back to normal, her tone when she speaks still hasn’t returned to it’s full state of loudness and excitement. She speaks quietly, abandoning her old flamboyant ways.
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“ Sure, I’ll be there in a minute. I’m just about finished.” I look down at my book, the bright pink cover staring back at me. This was the last one on my shelf. My mother gave herself two weeks. I gave myself one shelf. One shelf to move on.
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“ Okay.” she says, then leaves the room.
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The end of the book brings me to tears, and I have to wait a few moments before going down to help my mom. You’d think the happy books would have been the ones to have helped me the most, but no. The happy ones had just felt fake and meaningless. The sad ones, the ones that you read with tears in your eyes, those were the ones that helped the most, because what easier way to forget about your pain, that to be absorbed in someone else’s.
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“ Mom, I’m gonna go to a party tonight… Is that alright?” I looked at her across the table, and waited for an answer. In all honesty I would have been fine with any answer, yes or no.
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“ Sure. Will you be coming home tonight, or are you sleeping over somewhere?”
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My mom has always trusted me. She’s trusted all of us, even Adrian who came home late at night usually drunk her senior year. My mom never asked questions, but she also never helped her with hangovers or anything like that. One day when my sister was feeling worse than usual, she asked if she could stay home. My mom said that she wouldn’t say no but that she wouldn’t help her out either. She said that she got drunk all on her own, so she should deal with it all on her own. Adrian took that personally and the next night we got a call from the hospital. She drank too much and wouldn’t wake up. When she finally did, my mother just said the same thing again.
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“ You got here on your own, so I suggest you figure this out on your own too.”
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She said this with no emotion on her face. That night I thought my mother was cruel. I thought she did’t care about us. That thought quickly left me the next day. Adrian had left for school, and as I was about to leave as well, but I saw my mother crying into my dad’s shoulder.
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“she could have died” she whispered into his shirt.
That day I swore two things to myself. Number one, I would never drink. And number two, I would never do anything to hurt my mother, because that site, that vision of her so weak, it crushed me.
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My mind switched back to the present, and I thought about it. Tonight was Friday, so technically I didn’t have to go home, but I also didn’t have anywhere else to be.
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“ umm.. I don’t know. I’ll call you if I decide that I’m saying somewhere.”
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“ Alright.” was all she said, not a trace of worry. At least not a visible one.
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Eleven o’clock rolled around, a little too soon for my liking. For the first time in a long time, I was starting to worry about my clothes. After about half an hour of staring into my closet, I decided on a loose translucent plaid black and red flannel, and skinny jeans.
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Elliot pulled up at my house at exactly eleven o five. He surprised me by actually getting out of the car and walking up to the front door. He knocked and pretended not to see me looking through the window.
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My mother answered the door with a smile.
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“ Hello. I’m Margret.”
Elliot have her a charming smile,
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“ I’m Elliot. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
he stuck out his hand in greeting and my mom shook it.
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When I finally gathered up enough courage to come down from my hiding spot above the stairs, Elliot greeted me with a smile.
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“ Hey. Shall we go?”
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I nodded, and stepped toward him.
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We left the house and got into his car. It was a yellow hardtop. As he started to drive I started looking through stations for any good songs. There were none.
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“ So, where is this party?” I asked, trying to make small talk even though, as Elliot had already pointed out, I sucked at it.
“ it’s about twenty minutes away.” he answered.
there was silence for a few moments before he interrupted it.
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“let’s play twenty questions.” he said excitedly.
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“ alright… You start.” I was a bit nervous, because from what I’d gathered, Elliot didn’t know about my dad. Or at least he hadn’t mentioned him yet. Maybe this was his way of introducing the subject.
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“ Hmmm..” she started. “ Okay. Favourite book.”
“ Paper Towns, John Green” I answered instantaneously. “you?”
“ Every Day, David Levithan. Okay, your turn.”
I think for a moment before answering.
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“ favourite movie.” I say.
“ currently it’s X-man, Days of future past, but it changes about every week. you?”
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“ Perks of being a wallflower. Hasn't changed since twenty-twelve. I went on the opening day, because I hated the book.”
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He looks at me for a second, bewildered then turns his attention back to the road.
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“ why did you go opening day if you hated the book?”
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“ I wanted to see it right away so that I had full rights to hate on it. But after seeing it, I couldn't even process a negative thought. It was just so well done. I also had to reread the book, and I ended up loving that as well.”
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“wow, Lindsey. You’re starting to sound as cynical as me.”
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“ I’m just getting started.”
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He laughed. He was the first one in weeks to really laugh in front of me. It was like everyone else thought it was wrong to be happy around me. Like their happiness would somehow make me feel worse about my unhappiness.
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“ We’re here!” he said cheerfully.
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He parked his car and before I could even reach for the door, he had already opened it for me.
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“ Thanks.” I said, blushing slightly.
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He grinned at me. “ Let the fun begin.”
