The house feels suddenly very far away.
“If I get on that flight,” he presses, “will you be waiting for me when I arrive?”
My throat tightens. I think about everything we’re not saying. Everything we’re avoiding. Everything that will get complicated if this continues. And then I think about him. About the way he looked at the crowd after that final whistle. About the way my chest felt when he scanned the stands like he was searching for me through a screen.
“Yes,” I answer.
“I’m coming,” he says. “See you when I land.”
The call ends.
I stay where I am, phone still pressed to my ear, heart pounding, thoughts spiralling. I don’t know how long I stand there before my mum knocks lightly on the door.
“Frankie?” she calls. “Ya alright in there?”
I swallow. “Yeah. Just need a minute.”
She opens the door anyway, because she’s my mother and she never cares about boundaries.
“Why yuh lock up in here like a?—”
Her eyes flick to my face then my phone. “Oh,” she says softly. “Is him.”
I don’t answer.
She steps inside, closing the door behind her, voice dropping. “You and that boy going to give me grey hair before my time.”
“Mum…”
She waves her hand. “I not saying nothing.Yet. But yuh looking like yuh deep in thought already.”
“I’m always thinking.”
She sighs, reaching out to straighten my collar like she’s done since I was a child. “Go wash ya face.”
I do.
Cold waterdefinitely wakes me up but doesn’t clear my mind. I stare at my reflection, palms pressed to porcelain.
The bathroom door creaks open behind me.
Of course it does because my mum doesn’t ask for permission. She never has.
She leans against the doorframe, arms folded, watching me like she’s been watching me my whole life and waiting for me to say something stupid.
I turn off the tap slowly. “You don’t agree with what I’m doing, huh.”
She lifts an eyebrow. “You agree?”
I open my mouth. “I— like him. A lot. More than I intended to.”
She nods once, like she expected that.
“And yes,” I rush on, “it’s a mess. And yes, I should’ve told Za already. But I can’t bring myself to choose, and I know I’ll have to choose.”
Mum’s jaw tightens. She steps fully into the bathroom now, lowering her voice.
“It’s either ya choose,” she says quietly, “or the universe choose for ya.”
