SKYE
My alarm went off again,and I pushed snooze before rolling over on my side. I wasn’t even sure how many times I’d hit it at this point. Callie had gone camping with Jenny and her family in the Redwoods, so there was no reason for me to get out of bed.
The only reason my alarm was set was because I’d promised Ri that I’d go shopping with her today…at some point. But I didn’t see that happening. Nothing was going to get me out of this bed.
All my life, I’d never allowed myself the luxury of having a full-fledged confetti, streamers, and balloons pity party. It didn’t matter how I felt; I got up, kept going, and pushed through. I had to. I didn’t have a choice. I had to keep a roof over our heads and food in our mouths. I’d been in survival mode. This was the first time in my life I had the luxury of going fullAnne of Green Gablesdepths of despair mode, and I had no plans to get out of it anytime soon.
A knock came on the door, and I sighed. Since Callie wasn’t home, I knew that it was going to be my mom. “Come in.”
Lola entered with a tray, and as she got closer, she instructed me. “Sit up.”
The authoritative tone in her voice took me by surprise, and I did as she asked. When I settled back against the headboard, she set the tray on my lap. I looked down to find a cup of water, a mug of tea, two pieces of toast, and a bowl of strawberries.
“What’s this?”
“You need to eat something.”
Lola’s new maternal gestures were still taking some getting used to. I couldn’t remember any other time she’d brought me breakfast in bed. Even when I was sick as a kid, she used to just leave a sleeve of Saltine crackers and a can of 7Up outside my door because she hadn’t wanted to catch anything.
I was still in shock as I lifted the toast to my mouth. It was buttered and had sugar and cinnamon on it, just like I made it for Callie when she was little. I was enjoying my cinnamon toast when she opened the curtains and my window.
My eyes squinted at the bright sunlight that came streaming into my room.
“Mom!” I winced as I lifted my hand to cover my face. When I lowered my hand, I had every intention to tell her to shut the damn curtains, but when I saw her face, I didn’t. She was looking at me like I’d just grown another head.
“What’s wrong?!”
She sniffed as she said, “You called me mom.”
Had I?It’s not that I’d never referred to my mother as my mom. When I talked to other people, that’s what I called her. But I’d never called her that to her face. Even after our talk, where she said that she’d like me to call her mom, it just hadn’t seemed right coming out of my mouth.
“I think it’s fitting that the first time I did it was because you were doing something annoying.” I smiled, and she laughed.
I took another bite as she lowered herself down on the edge of my bed. “You need to get up, take a shower, and rejoin the world.”
All of that sounded highly overrated.
“I’m tired. I’m just trying to decompress.”
It had been one week since I snuck out of Nick’s house in the early morning after Naomi’s memorial. One week of lying in bed all day and all night. One week of barely eating, and no matter how much I slept, feeling exhausted. I would have to join the real world soon enough, but not for another week when I ran out of vacation days.
“I’m on vacation,” I reminded her.
She stared at me, and I could see that my explanation for being in bed at four in the afternoon was not impressing her.
My phone buzzed on the bedside, and I grabbed it and saw that it was him. It was Nick. I ignored the text.
“Why are you ignoring him?”
“Who?” I automatically responded.
It was strange. I’d never understood a child’s impulse to lie to a parent, mainly because my mother had never actually cared that much about what I did, even as a teenager. She was the one telling me to go out and party; I was the one staying in and studying.
But now I got it. I didn’t want to answer questions about Nick. I’d spoken to him once after sneaking out of his house under the blanket of night. He’d called and said he wanted to see me, but I’d told him that I couldn’t. When he asked why, I’d explained to him that because of the circumstances under which we’d met, a relationship wasn’t sustainable. I told him that he’d feel different when his life went back to normal. He hadn’t agreed with my assessment. He’d said that none of that meant we couldn’t be friends. Hence the calls and texts. He was trying to be my friend.
He didn’t know that would be impossible for me. I didn’t want to be his friend. I didn’t want to randomly find more Easter egg lipsticks. I didn’t want to hear about his dates for events and galas. I couldn’t be his friend because I was in love with him.
“Why won’t you give him a chance?”
