The Illusion of Permanence

Chapter 9

My heart is racing, I can't breathe, and I feel like I'm being suffocated even though we're out in open air. "I need to get out of here," I say quickly, because everything is frozen and I need it to move faster, faster, faster. I need to get past this moment as quickly as possible, I want it to be over, I want to be gone.

"Mia, calm down," Luna says, putting her delicate hand on my arm in an attempt to ease my shaking. "Tell me what's going on."

Those five words remind me that even though there are so many things in my head right now, Luna is not one of them—she can't see what I'm seeing or feel what I'm feeling. I need to find the words to explain it all to her.

"I think there's something wrong with my mom," I say. "She's dying of cancer, and I left her there pretty much alone because I was being so selfish but now something's wrong and I need to—"

"Hey, shh, shh," Luna says. "How do you know something's wrong?" Seeing the worry in her eyes, I can tell that she knows there's something missing, something that happened in between our kiss and now that changed everything. She's right.

"I saw her," I explain hesitantly.

Luna stares at me for a moment. "Mia, you're drunk."

"Listen to me! I saw her, okay? She whispered my name in my ear while we were kissing and then I saw her, there—" I point to the dark and empty window across the street where I saw Mom's figure just a few moments before. "I saw her, and I know there's something wrong and I have to go home." 

"Mia, I don't know what's going on in your head right now, but if you go home, your dad is gonna kill you." The tremble in her voice indicates genuine worry for me: she's worried about what could be happening to my mind and what could happen to my body.

"I have to see my mom." My voice breaks as I say this, because I can feel that acidic burning sensation in the back of my throat that indicates that the tears are on their way.

"Mia, you're drunk." Luna repeats. "You can't go anywhere now. If you still want to go tomorrow when you're sober, we'll go first thing in the morning. I promise."

"Don't...promise things like that," I tell her. I realize that that's become our mantra.

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The truth is that I don't want Luna to come with me. This is a family emergency, and I need to be with my family. Well, with Mom, at least. She might be closing in on her final days, and I need to be there with her. I was stupid and selfish to leave her in the first place.

This is why I'm sneaking out of Mike's apartment by myself at 8:00 in the morning. Luna is still asleep on the futon, which was somehow big enough to fit both of us on it last night after everyone left the party. There's garbage everywhere, so it's extra difficult to keep quiet as I sneak around, getting dressed and making sure I have all of my things.

An hour later, I'm on a Poughkeepsie-bound Metro North train, heading home. My stomach is in knots. I'm nervous to see the state that Mom is in, to see how bad she's gotten, and to find out if she's upset with me for leaving. But even more than all that, I'm scared to face my father again. The last time we were face-to-face, he hit me. Like, he actually put his hands on me with the intent to cause me physical pain. And then I left, probably making him angrier with me than he already was—who's to say what he's going to do to me when I get back? Will Luna be right in saying he might kill me? Should I be worried about him hurting me like that, or has he calmed down over the past couple of days? Has he hurt Mom since I left? He wouldn't hit her, since she's already so physically frail, but he could be emotionally abusing her in her last few days. I shouldn't have left her alone with him. I shouldn't have been such a coward and run away from my problems like a child. I only thought about the pain I was escaping, not the consequences I was leaving behind.