I swear she deliberately jams on the brakes too hard at the corner, jerking me forward enough to engage the seatbelt.
“You’re the one who insisted on coming along.”
“Yes. God forbid, I try to care for my son who checked himself out of the hospital against medical advice.”
I have a retort ready when something in her voice snags my attention. When I glance over, I see that she’s crying.
“It’s okay. Everything will heal.”
“Except for the trauma.” She sniffs and shakes her head as though angry at the tears for falling. “I thought you were dead.”
“Yeah, I gathered that from the screaming.” When she doesn’t crack a smile, I put my hand on top of hers, letting go when she needs to turn the corner. “I’m fine. Everything looks a lot worse than it is.”
“It would have to be, because it looks really, really bad.”
I return my attention to the road, directing her through the last few turns before we pull into the driveway. The house looks innocuous from the outside. No signs of disturbance.
Mum helps me out of my seat, then aims for the door. “You can stay in the car,” I say, trying to balance, angry that it’s suddenly a dozen times harder than usual. “I’ll wave when I get to the door.”
“I’m coming inside.”
“No. Just stay there.”
She moves me a step towards the door. “Maybe stop with the orders for the next while, okay? You’re not in any fit state to be on your own.”
“I won’t be alone.”
“Really? Who’s going to be with you?” When I don’t answer, she says, “I’m not leaving you alone in a strange house with no support.”
“I told you it’s worse than it looks.”
“Don’t give me that. You can’t even stand.” She helps me stagger a few steps closer to the door and I try for real to get away from her. There are a load of things I don’t want my mother to know about me and top of the list is how I’ve treated the girl waiting inside.
With my feeble efforts, I still overpower her easily. She steps back, cupping her elbows, staring at me with colour raging high up her cheekbones.
“I’ve got this,” I insist. “Please just go home. I’ll join you there, later. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Caylon, you’re not…” She frowns at the ground, biting on the side of her lip and screwing her eyes closed.
“Wow. That thought looks like it hurts.”
“I remember what it was like, you know. It’s hard when everything changes.”
I give a faint snort that costs me a yelp from my ribs. “Please. If you’re about to give me the puberty speech, our phys-ed teacher got there way before you.”
“I meant your brain, sweetie.” She shifts position, holding the side of my head and pressing it against her chest for a second before letting go. “I remember what it’s like when the part of you that evaluates everything goes wonky and half the stuff you think is happening just isn’t, with no way to tell them apart.”
My chest seizes but this time it’s not with pain. It’s fear. “Nothing like that is happening.”
Her hand rubs my upper arm in a sympathetic gesture that just adds to my deepest worries. “I’m sure it’s not but if it is, I want you to know whatever you’ve got tucked away inside here—whatever it is that you desperately don’t want me to see—I will understand. I know you’re a good boy. You wouldn’t do anything to hurt someone else unless you truly believed that was the only thing left to do.”
Panic trudges around my nervous system, taking its own sweet time to get anywhere, slowed by the same drugs and pain that binds the rest of my body. It makes it worse somehow, not going from zero to a hundred like I usually would with an overdose of adrenaline. The slow progress gives me enough time to dread it hitting the next plateau… and the next…
Is it all a hallucination? Is that why you can’t remember anything clearly?
My limbs shake as the amped up drug finally hits; fight or flight reduced to just standing, incapable of doing either.
There are large patches of static instead of memories where it comes to Em. The bathroom where I can’t remember exactly what happened. The tree where…
