Mr. Halloway's Pet

Chapter Eleven

"You wouldn't hate me if I rescheduled?"

That sentence has been the only thing to haunt me the past 3 days of sitting helplessly at my moms bedside.

The sounds of hospital reach my ears, contributing to the familiar numb feeling in my chest. This is a process I never thought I'd have to repeat, but here I am, listening to the beeping of a machine I've grown an annoyance toward.

Though it's reassuring to hear her heartbeat, I can't help but to be pissed.

Again.

The fact that she'd done this to me not once, but two times. On a day where it was supposed to be just us relaxing at a spa, getting some bonding time. What good timing, mom.

I don't struggle with the same mental illness she's been plagued with the last 10 years, but either way, I don't understand how she could do this to her daughter.

As her only child, I don't have any siblings to lean on if she passes. Last year was horrible and I'd barely made it out sane.

She'd let me attend a couple of her therapy sessions with her to talk about where we were at. I remember her telling the therapist about how much better she was doing. How she was getting outside more and walking the trails. How she was spending more time with me. How good I was doing in school.

That therapy session was only a month and a half ago.

The picture she'd painted then crumbles apart as I stare at her ghostly face. The bags under her eyes are worse than what mine were the morning after I'd drinken. She looks more like a zombie than a zombie looks like a zombie.

The sight is heartbreaking in itself and I have to look away before I get the urge to cry yet again.

A painful sigh resonates from my mouth as I look at my tangled fingers. They're cold and sweaty.

My stomach rumbles, not having had any food to digest for the past couple days. The silence is far too heavy, similar to the anchor weighing down every single one of my limbs.

A knock on the door makes me jump at the sudden sound.

I turn my head, and the brown hunk of wood slowly opens to reveal the last person I was expecting to see, and frankly, the last person I'd like to see.

Someone I haven't been in contact with for about a year.

The sight immediately causes my muscles to tense.

"What're you doing here?" I ask, my words borderline hostile. His presence is enough to immediately piss me off.

His response is to raise his hands defensively, stepping forward slowly.

"The hospital called, told me what was going on. I guess they still have me on their emergency contact list." He explains, still approaching me as if I'm a wounded animal.

"Thanks for telling me, I'll make sure we get you taken off the list." I remark, standing and blocking mom from his view.

My legs still feel weak, but I hold my ground without faltering.

"C'mon, Paige. We're not doing this right now. Your mother is-" Before he can finish, I scoff.

"Yes, you're right. We're not doing this right now. You don't get the satisfaction of seeing mom like this. Leave. You know, since you're so good at it." My voice is harsh, void of any emotion that may express my hurt. I won't give him the satisfaction seeing my pain.

Never again will he so much as catch a peak of any sort of distraught look on my face. He saw enough of it when he turned his back on both my mom and I in the most difficult time if our lives. Perhaps the second worst now, though. I think this one tops the cake.