Mom
How are you feeling, sweetie?
Scottie
Crappy. Thanks for checking.
Mom
I’m sorry! What can I do? Do you have enough NyQuil? DayQuil? Need some soup? I could hop on a plane right now and come take care of you.
Scottie
It’s not a big deal. I’ll feel better in a day or two. You’d get on a plane just to turn back around.
Mom
Are you sure? I know you don’t want to risk Jake getting sick, but I’ve taught elementary schoolers for thirty years. I’m sick-proof.
Scottie
You’re nice, Mom. Thanks for caring. I’ll be okay. Love you!
Mom
Love you, too. Keep me posted!
I stare at the exchange on my phone, not sure why I have a bad taste in my mouth. My parents are wonderful. They’re the kind of people who canceled an anniversary trip to pick up a twelve-year-old Jake when they found out he’d tried to run away. The kind who would convert a third-car garage to an extra bedroom with its own entrance so he always had a safe place to stay. The kind who missed their daughter’s dance recital because they had to pick Jake up from a baseball tournament in Harrisburg after his mom just … didn’t.
I know they love me.
Just not as much as they love Jake.
Just not enough to go to the ends of the earth for me the way they would for him.
And maybe that’s my problem with her message. She offered to fly out.
But if I were Jake, she’d already be on the plane.
I want someone to love me the way my parents love him—unquestioning, all in, without needing to be asked.
Someone who doesn’t hear “I’m fine” and take it at face value.
I wince at the embarrassing reality and duck my head, wishing my emotional pain wasn’t suddenly eclipsing the physical.
For once, I don’t push the feeling down. I just let it sit there, embarrassing and true.
“Are you okay?”
Lucas’s voice cuts into my thoughts, pulling me from a place darker than I want to be. The movie continues in the background—lots of gunfire and shouting.
“I’m fine.”
Lucas doesn’t look convinced.
“Are you sure? Liam Neeson just”—he glances at the TV—“threatened a man with jumper cables, and you didn’t even blink.”
I blink several times. “There. Better?”
