Before you go... //h.s

Falling apart

^^ Falling apart – Michael Schulte. This song isn't played in the chapter, but if you listen it makes it that much better. Trust me.

And trigger warning for illnesses and mental health

'Your Mum is sick Iris, I'm sorry,' he told me seriously.

I almost puffed a laugh out of my cheeks, assuming he was talking about some bloody winter cold that sucked but would go away in a few days.

His words hardly reverberated around my head before I continued through the door, the same hallway greeting me with the same pictures of me from when I was younger. The pictures of my brother had been updated though to reflect the changing times as he grew up and the thought that they hadn't updated mine because they didn't have any photos racked me with guilt.

They were my parents and I had never given them enough attention.

I walked through the hallway to the kitchen, a blast of heat hitting me as I stepped out of the chilly December air, expecting my Mum to be in there with the smell of freshly baked cookies wafting through but what greeted me instead left me speechless as it knocked into me like a rock into my stomach leaving me winded and my brain fuzzy.

Because it was clear that Mum didn't just have some winter cold.

She was thin, frail and sickly looking as her old clothes hung off her skinny frame like she'd bought clothes five sizes too big, when what had happened was that she had wasted away until her old clothes looked like someone else's.

Her skin was tinted with yellow to an extent that it almost looked unnatural, dark bags hanging low under her eyes and her hair so sparse it was almost not there. Her eyes were dim with tiredness and pain and meeting her gaze and seeing her sick eyes made me feel sick, my Mum wasn't supposed to be like this.

She was strong.

She patched me up when I was sick. She shouldn't get sick.

I didn't even have to ask what was wrong with her, the lack of hair and skin making it all too blatantly clear for my hurting eyes to see. So instead, despite my soul hating my brain for my reaction, I backed off slightly in shock as my eyes widened as I felt them heat with tears that threatened to fall.

So all I could manage to stutter out of my bloody mouth was,

'Why...what...how...why didn't you tell me?' I fumbled nervously, painfully over the words. Neither of my parents seemed surprised by my reaction as my Dad walked over to my Mum's chair by the radiator, readjusting her blanket and kissing her head.

My heart felt like it was twisting and constricting in on itself, my stomach a storming mess as my whole body tensed with the effort to push each breath out. My brain whirred, jumping from one panicked thought to another without giving me time to process anything.

'Iris...we...I mean, I...I didn't want to worry you darling,' she spoke quietly, slowly as though each word was an effort and suddenly everything made sense to me: why she didn't speak on the phone, why she hadn't picked me up at the airport, every tiny piece they'd fed me over the past months...it all fitted together for the first time and all I could do was curse myself for not realising sooner. For not flying home sooner to be with her.

'You should have told me,' I choke out as I stumble backwards, shoving a hand forward as though it could push away her illness and make her better again, make her back into the woman I remembered from growing up.

Her face drops in pain, in tiredness, in guiltiness...I'm not sure.

But suddenly the thick air in the house is choking me, forcing itself unwanted down my throat. I spin, rushing as fast as my bewildered feet could move out of our front door, down the street, passing each individual house where I could name the occupant and everything about them; this was the kind of town where everyone knows everyone's business and as a child and teenager, I hated they all knew which classes I was failing and which boy I was dating but I'd begun to realise it was nice to live in a place where everyone knows your name, where everyone seems to care about you.