“Connor,” I reprimand him but he doesn’t back down.
He continues, the anger in his voice scathing. “You don’t deserve her! You don’t deserve her kindness. You don’t deserve her time. You don’t deserve her love. And you don’t deserve her as a daughter. You. Don’t. Deserve. Her.” Connor’s vibrating with fury. His cheeks are flustered and his hands are fisted by his sides, his knuckles having gone white. “So just leave her alone,” he says then, his voice softer but I can tell he’s holding back tears. “Leave us both the hell alone.”
A silence falls over the room. The only sounds being my brother’s erratic breathing and my mother’s accelerated heartbeat from the monitor.
Finished with our mom, Connor wraps his arms around me fiercely. It’s only then he allows the tears to escape. Soothing him I run my hand up and down his back until his breathing returns to normal.
Over the top of Connor’s head I meet mom’s eyes and I’m stunned to see the unshed tears. She works on her bottom lip, a habit I must’ve inherited from her. “You’re right. I don’t deserve her.” Her voice is shaky. Connor lifts his head to look back at her. He regards her with a heavy glare. “But you both deserve to be happy. And I know that doesn’t include me. It never did.”
Sometimes I hate having a heart that feels way too god damn fucking much. Because even though what she’s saying is an undisputed truth it finally feels as if I lost her for good.
This is her saying goodbye.
For the fist time in thirteen years our mom is putting her kids before her.
She’s the one saying goodbye because she knows that I wouldn’t have had the heart to.
And there’s a storm of emotions wrecking havoc inside of me. Too many to know how to really feel. Anger, sorrow, andheartbreak are all there, but the one I feel that wrecks me the most is relief.
I’m relieved my own mom, Vivian Vale, will finally be out of our life.
It twists me up inside. The guilt I have for feeling relief has me questioning if I am a good person.
But as I hold my precious brother in my arms, a boy who had to grow up just as much as I did, a boy denied the childhood he should’ve had, a boy denied the warmth and love of his mother, the guilt for feeling relief lessens.
The pain though, the pain I’m not quite sure will ever really go away.
Gracie Mae
I’m still trying to reconcile with the fact that the mom I adored and loved never existed. The woman I fought so hard to get back, the one I held onto hope for, was never real.
It’s a hard pill to swallow.
Every sweet memory I’ve had from my childhood with her is now seen as an act of betrayal.
She made me believe a beautiful lie. A lie, where she had wanted a daughter. A lie, where she had wanted a family. A lie where she had loved me unconditionally.
“Cupcake, you sure you’re okay?” Sasha asks with concern dripping from her voice like honey. Her amber eyes meet mine and I offer her an attempt of a smile.
“I’m-”
She points her manicured neon orange finger at me. “Don’t you dare say fine, Gracie Mae.”
My eyes twinkle as amusement flickers inside me. “Uh-oh, you’re using my full name. I must be in trouble.”
Her hand comes to grasp mine against as her eyes stay leveled with concern. “It’s okay for you to miss her.”
My eyes evade hers as I swallow thickly. My heart flares at the mention of her, causing a burning ache. “How can I miss her when none of it was true?”
She squeezes my hand in reassurance. There’s a sympathetic smile on her face. “It doesn’t take away how you felt. You had loved her at one point in your life, Grace. And your love for her was real, it was true. Just because hers wasn’t doesn’t mean what you had felt wasn’t.”
I squeeze her hand back as my eyes begin to mist. “Thank you.”
She then pulls me in a warm embrace that makes my heart fucking swell and weep at the same time.
God, I am beyond fortunate to have such kind and incredible people in my life.
Feeling a soft nudge on my shoulder I release myself from Sasha’s embrace. She shifts closer to me on the couch and lays a comforting hand on my thigh.
