That prickliness against my skin, the way it feels like my lungs are slowly deflating.
My body welcomes the anxiety like an old friend, picks it up like it’s always been there, waiting. I glance at the nurse whose face is too neutral. It reminds me of Grant.
You always jump the gun, Sloane.
I suck in a breath. “Phone must be dead.” I smile weakly. “Go ahead and bump us to this afternoon. I’ll go by her place and get her.”
The woman nods, clicking into her computer looking for a new time.
“Four thirty work?” she asks and I appreciate her lack of annoyance. I nod before turning back into the gray sleet covered city, my mind flashing to all the moments my mom was exactly who Grant says she is. Us with trash bags ripping at the seams, Grant sharing the last can of spam while Mom was passed out on the couch, the lumps in every mattress that wasn’t my own.
The stairs to her building haven’t been salted in what looks like over a week and I feel my mouth tug downward because why didn’t she call me. Why didn’t I know her stairs were so slippery? The stale alcohol I consumed last night churns in my stomach, only making my guilt grow tenfold.
I should have been here, should have been helping her with all this. The inside of my cheek feels raw and blistered, the way it used to when I was a kid, nervously biting the inside waiting for the other shoe to drop. I hit her buzzer and nothing. Again, I hear the static blare and am met with no response. I see Leonard the super through the foggy glass pane of the window and wave him over with a mittened hand. He pokes his head out, coatless and unprepared for the blistering cold. He squints, confused.
“Hey there, I don’t know if you remember me?—”
“I do,” he nods gruffly but there's a tenderness to him, like he’s someone's dad or grandfather, like he knows how to talk to a girl on the edge.
“I need to pick up my mom for?—”
He cuts me off again, his brow crease sending a ripple of confusion and panic up my spine.
“You just missed her. Weird…I figured she’d called you.”
I let out a breath, tension I didn’t know I was holding deflating instantly and I feel the weight on my chest lessen, allowing me to breathe again.
“Gotcha, thanks.” I begin to turn and I feel his fingers catch my sleeve.
“Wait. I, uh…she left a few papers upstairs, you may wanna grab em?”
A myriad of forms and charts flash through my mind as I try to piece together what she may need for her appointment today.
“Yeah, of course. Thanks.” There's a new levity to my voice as I step into the building shuffling down the long corridor leading to Mom’s first floor apartment.
He slots a small gold key with the number 16 written in black sharpie in the lock, turning it into the knob until there's a definitive click. “Let me know if ya need me.”
He gestures back to the door that leads to the super's office and I nod, confused.
It’s dark inside but I can immediately sense the room’s hollowness. Maybe it was the way the door swung open or the way a home smells when it’s empty. Like if I just inhale deep enough I’ll get that hint of strawberry buried in the smoky smell of Mom’s Marlboro reds. Maybe if I don’t flip the switch, reality won’t set in. The thought crosses my mind as my fingers clench the small white knob. I feel my jaw shaking, vomit rising and I run to the sink letting the contents of night before, of every night before, come out.
A table. That’s all that’s left.
My lips quiver, as my mind begins the same barrage of excuses so permanently etched in my memory.Maybe there wasan emergency,maybe she found a place closer to Grant’s, maybe she’s surprising me, maybe?—
My mind begins to play out the various reactions I’ll have to said surprise, the one I know isn’t coming. I’ll hug her, grasp her now frail body so tightly against mine, kiss her on top of her blonde head the exact same shade as mine. Promise her I’ll be good, promise her the world, anything to make her stay. I feel my body slide down the wood paneled cabinets of her kitchen, feel my knees retract into my sternum, wrapping my arms around them, and I feel her again. That lost little girl, who just wanted to please, who put on a show, playing her part until she couldn’t anymore.
Why couldn’t I just be better, why couldn’t I just ask for less, be less…maybe if I was less…
My thumbs find Andy’s name in my phone. I hear the ring, this ominous endless thing, the tone so similar to how it was calling Elliot that day in the hospital. Andy isn’t late, though. He owes me nothing, and still my thumb hits his name again. And I hate him but I hate myself more. I hate that I let this happen, hate that it keeps happening to me. That I need him, that I’ve ever let myself need anyone.
The tone sounds again.
“Just answer!” I scream into the emptiness. It echoes against the walls and I let my head sink into my hand. This isn’t the first time I’ve felt like this and it won’t be the last, because I’m the girl people leave. The only common denominator here is me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, screaming into my hand, muffling the sound. I get up and there’s a hollow creak under the floor board my foot landed on, it’s loose. Grant was right—he’s always right. People don’t change. I pull it up, the same way I did as a child, pulling out a half empty bottle of Jim Beam, asticky note with familiar scrawl attached to the front the way she always had it.
drink me if your dyin
