“Do you think it was easy for me losing him?” There’s that word again, easy. “He was everything to me, Grace.”
“And what was I to you? What was Connor to you?” She flinches but I’m done past the point of not wanting to hurt her feelings. “Do we really mean so little?” My voice is small.
Her face contorts and I know whatever it is she’s about to say is going to hurt. It’s going to take a hold of my heart and crush it. “Not as much as him. You both don’t mean as much as him.” I had always suspected it. If I’m being real with myself I think I’ve always known. But hearing it, hearing the truth you always wanted to be a lie is heartbreaking.
And now I know why some people want to be told the beautiful lie instead of the bitter truth.
Connor and I will never mean enough to her. And that’s. . .that’s fucking devastating. I always held onto hope that one day she would come back. But now I’ve come to see I’ve held on for nothing.
“You never had any intention on getting sober, did you?”
“I don’t know, sweetie.” God, I hate her using my nickname now. A nickname that brought me nothing but joy but is now only causing me pain. “I think I’m too far gone for all of that.”
My bleeding heart on my sleeve says otherwise. “No one is too far gone, mom.” Her lips twists as I call her that.
“I really loved being your mom at one point in my life. I did. I really did.” I don’t know who she is trying to convince. Me or herself. “But I think I only loved being one because of how happybeing a dad made your father. And without him I realized being a mom didn’t fulfill me like I thought it did.”
“You were still our mom,” I grit out through clenched teeth. The pain she’s inflicting turning itself to anger. “You had no right to abandon us like you did. Do you even realize what you’ve done?” My voice gradually rises. “You made an eleven year old grieving daughter become more than just an adult. You made her become a mother. You gave her all the responsibilities as if she could hold the weight of the world upon her shoulders. How could you do that? How could you think any of that was okay?”
“I never said it was.” That’s her answer. My heart is fucking bleeding, I’m feeling nothing but pain and anger is flowing like lava in my veins. And that’s her answer.
I. Never. Said. It. Was.
“Why did you even keep us?”
“I saw how much you loved your brother, Grace. And with no family to claim you I knew there was a high chance you’d be separated from him if I gave the both of you up. They’d adopt him easily, being how young he was. You’d be harder finding someone to adopt you.”
I. . .I never thought of that.
I never thought for one moment in her own sick and twisted way mom was only trying to keep us together.
“Then why didn’t you sign over custody to me once I became legal?”
“Because at eighteen you wouldn’t have been granted it, sweetie.” There’s that nickname again. It feels as if she’s stabbing me each time she uses it.
“You didn’t know that.” I force out, voice as hard as steel.
“Of course I did. You were freshly graduated from high school trying to make ends meet on a minimum wage job. No judge would’ve given you custody.” I want to argue with her but even I know she’s right. “By the time you started making moreSteven had been assigned as Connor’s social worker.” And there is where I truly got fucked. I didn’t see it when I first met him. His smiles were just as deceiving as his kind eyes. By the time I caught on I was already under his clutches, his claws embedded deep in my skin. “He’s not a good man, sweetie.”
For once when I look at her I actually see emotion in her eyes other than desperation and fury. I see a hint of sympathy along with a greater dose of fear.
“Did he. . .?” I can’t even believe the words I’m about to say. “Did he give you the drugs?”
Silence greets me back. A heavy silence with the grit of her teeth and fire that burns in her eyes.
And it’s an answer without her saying a single word.
“Why would you take drugs from him?” Incredulously I ask her.
“What’s that saying?” She pauses, a cruel yet painful smile playing on her lips. “Like sticking candy in front of a baby.”
“Did you tell the doctors he supplied you the drugs? Mom, they were laced with fentanyl.”
She gives me a doubtful look. “You honestly think they’ll believe me? I’m a drug addict.” It’s the first time I’ve heard her say it out loud.
“I believe you.”
She sighs. “Sweet,” she says as if that explains it all. “Even when you have every right not to be.”
