Oscar had no such powers.
But maybe what he lacked in time manipulation, Oscar had in premonition. As his mother’s mouth began to form the letters, her voice lilting up her throat, Oscar’s stomach roiled.
This was not Gemma. And he was not Aaron.
“My name is Oscar,” he said, before she could even utter it. “Not any other.”
“Look at what you’ve done to yourself.” She looked from side to side, nostrils flaring on a face turning red with panic, eyes skittering as she no doubt checked whether anyone who knew her would glimpse her conversing with the likes of him. Perhaps concluding that nobody of note was in the vicinity, she took a step forward, approaching his stall. “You never did know when to stop.”
“I guess I got that from my mother,” Oscar replied. “She also didn’t stop until she’d driven me out of the house.”
“You left because you wanted to.” Her finger shook as she whipped it out, pointing it in his direction. Her voice was scratched and raw, but there had been no screaming yet. Maybe her throat remembered what it felt like when the two of them crossed paths. “Nobody forced you to go.”
“I wanted to kill myself every day I lived under your roof,” Oscar replied. His skin prickled as the weight of his confession settled in his mouth, rusting his tongue with its bitterness. “Are you going to take a sample? Because I have work to do.”
“Is this what you’ve made of yourself then?” she asked, shaking her head. “Giving out free samples on the high street?”
“It’s hardly a high street,” Oscar replied.
He rolled his eyes, wondering how much of herself hismother could see in his expression, whether he also turned into a glacier every time he saw her face. He wondered whether she found Papa in the brown of his eyes, whether she missed him. As he prepared to rattle off all his achievements, to tell her about his beta testing and being in the second year of his degree, Oscar clamped his mouth shut. Why should he? His mother was no longer in his life, and if Oscar wanted to give out free samples in the shopping district, then there was nothing for him to justify. Aaron did it. And there was nothing Oscar was proud of the way he was of Aaron.
“Is this how you funded that monstrosity? At least we know you’re not starving. You’ll grow that chest right back if you keep eating this way.” It seemed her finger didn’t need to touch Oscar for him to feel its jab. “You should be ashamed of yourself,” she hissed.
“If you knew anything about top surgery, you’d understand it doesn’t work that way, and nothing will grow back. And I’m proud to know I can feed myself. So, no, I’m not ashamed,” Oscar replied.
But a part of him still hated that his mother was. No matter how much time passed, it seemed, and no matter his conviction as to the awful person she was, in the end, she was his mother, and a small part of Oscar wanted to curl up in the soft cotton scent of her dresses from his childhood, to feel her warm breath brushing the top of his head when she kissed him good night. More than anything, Oscar wished that, just once, she’d call him her son. That she’d call him by his name.
His eyes burned, teeth grinding as he worked in overtime not to cry in front of her. Not again. Not now.
In the end, it was the victory settling in her eyes as she watched him labor not to break that did it. His fist cracked against plastic, a guttural growl pushing out of him as he sprayed his hand and his mother’s white blouse in sparkly pink. A time before, he would have drenched himself inboiling water to get rid of it. But Oscar was no longer afraid of any color.
He’d worked hard enough, cried hard enough, screamed hard enough. Oscar had been hurt enough to watch his own blood turn pink beneath the running water. On his bedroom wall, there was a flag that bore this color.
And he was not afraid.
“Fuck you,” he said, nose curling as he spat it out.
His mother huffed, eyes darting down to his chest one more time before she turned on her heel and left. Oscar swallowed hard, eyes fixed on her loose blonde hair as she swept through the crowd like a wind, her golden wedding ring glinting as it caught the sun, outliving the man who had put it on her finger.
“Sorry, can we have one?” Oscar turned to look at two girls waiting to approach his stall. They stood to the side, eyes on everything except his face, and he knew they’d heard at least a part of what had gone on between him and his mother.
“Yeah, of course. Take whatever you like,” Oscar mumbled.
“And then, please come inside,” a woman said.
Oscar turned, eyes snagging on the woman from earlier. Her eyebrows were low and tight, not a hair out of place. Oscar nodded. He swallowed what felt like glass, as eager for the girls to go as he was desperate for them to stay and spare him.
In any case, it would have done nothing to help him. Moments later, a younger cashier walked out of the shop and to the back of his pop-up stall, offering a kind smile as she informed him she would be taking over.
When Oscar walked in, the shop wasn’t as crowded as it had been the last time he’d checked, and the blonde woman with the pretty face and angry eyebrows was waiting for him beside the white door, which she now opened for him.
“Please return the shirt we’ve given you and go,” she said.
“I can explain,” Oscar replied, reaching out with his hands as though this would do anything to help him. “She?—”
“I really don’t care to know.” The woman shook her head. “Even from behind the glass, your argument was visibly heated. You’re wearing a shirt with our logo on it, passing out items that represent our brand. It’s unprofessional to take your personal life to work.”
“I didn’t?—”
