Page 125 of Mommy

When I ask him who’s watching the puppies, he tells me that Ez and Rose spent a fair amount of time at his house the past week. Keeping him company, taking care of the dogs.

I could use his confession to tell him that I found a sort of friendship with Abi, but I’m not so sure he would approve of that. From what I have heard, he isn’t very fond of her.

It’s not until I feel like I can’t possibly eat another bite without vomiting that Derek helps me up and back to the car.

“I’d like to tell my Mom I’ll be staying with you.” I say the words quietly, pushing them past my lips while I stare at the tips of my sneakers in the foot compartment.

“Okay.” Derek says. “Posie and the others will be fine if we take a little longer. Do you want to do it right now?”

I’m not sure if I do, but I’m afraid that if I don’t do it now I’ll push it off again and again. And then I’ll never tell her. So I nod.

Derek nods too and after shifting into gear, his large palm comes to rest on my thigh.

It’s nice. To have him touch me again, to breathe in his scent and feel the warmth of his skin through my leggings.

I’m so content in the passenger seat, I think I doze off for a little while when Derek gets gas and flowers for my Mom. I only fully wake again when I hear the car door click shut. Derek has already come around the car —gas station bouquet in hand—when I manage to peel my eyes open and unbuckle the seatbelt.

“We’re here.”

I nod, my gaze catching on a trash pile somewhere behind him.

Compared to his home with the pristine front yard and freshly mowed lawn, this neighbourhood is so ugly.

Derek must have seen the frown on my face because when I got out of the car, he kept close to me, his nose brushing my temple as he spoke.

“We don’t have to do this, Ivy. I washed your things at home, you’d be fine for another few weeks. Or we can get you more clothes somewhere else.”

I know he thinks that’s a good option, but deep down I know I can’t avoid this forever. I can’t avoid my mom forever. Clothes or not, this is something I need to do. If she calls me Ebony again, that’s nothing Derek hasn’t seen happen before. And maybe it’s time I tell him more about the twin sister I should’ve grown up alongside.

The house is silent today, no TV blaring and no noise coming out of the kitchen. We left Posie in the car, this will only take a few minutes.

My heart makes a painful thud against my ribs, worry crawling up my throat, when I see her shadow on the wall.

She’s wearing a dress, the long hem swishing around her ankles, and her hair is in a low bun at her neck, only a few strands framing her face. The wrinkles in her cheek tell me that she must have fallen asleep on the couch again and only woke up because I got in the house.

“Hey Mom.” I say weakly, the guilt already weighing my words.

“Hey Sweetheart,” she replies with an uncertain smile that says: who’s this?

Sometimes the meds play with her head a little and since she first saw Derek when she was taking all of them, I’m not all that surprised she can’t place him now.

Nodding towards him beside me, I say:

“You remember Derek?”

He jumps right in, stretching out his hand with the flowers.

“Good Evening, Ma’am.” His smile is polite and his arm, now free of the flowers, curves around my waist.

“Oh, thank you.” Mom stands there a little bit lost, the big bouquet in her hands, staring at the two of us like we’re ghosts.

“Why don’t you put those in water?”

I desperately want her to move first, because if I move first she will see the abandonment I’m about to set into motion. Even if I just get a bag full of things, I have no doubt that she will guess that I’m gone for longer than a weekend.

“Yes, of course.”

She’s holding the flowers against her chest, wandering off to the kitchen.