Songbird

Five: Colt

"The fact that you thought that was going to heal itself..." my mom grumbled as the screen door slammed closed behind her. "I've truly raised an idiot."

"Thanks, Ma," I retorted, just as grumbly, looking down at my now professionally bandaged hand. Thirteen stitches across the palm later, and it had finally stopped bleeding. Not that I had even really noticed it. Or cared. Mom sure did when she came down that morning and there was a blood trail behind me, though.

"You wanna tell me what you did?" she fired back, as she threw open the fridge, gunning for one of her prissy, fizzy waters I'm sure.

"Not particularly," I mumbled.

"Wanna tell me why your sister's mad at you then?"

My face scrunched in confusion. "Cora ain't got no reason to be mad at me."

"Really? Nothing to do with Miss Lennie?"

I groaned and clenched my eyes shut. I should've known. I should've known I wasn't going to get away with pretending nothing had happened, but I'd foolishly allowed myself to hope. "It was a misunderstanding," I muttered.

"A misunderstanding that involved you smashing a glass in your bare hand and her storming out, crying her poor little heart out?"

I glared as my mom sank into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, her gaze as knowing as always. "Why you asking questions if you already knew what happened?"

"Because I wanna hear it out of your mouth," she responded. "I want you to tell me why you'd get mad that Carter was into her if you weren't. Because that was your reasoning, was it not?"

"Mom," I groaned, rubbing my eyes until I saw those weird little multicolored spots behind my eyelids. "I really don't want to talk about this."

"Too fucking bad, Colton Hayes. You're going to. I'm tired of you stomping around here like someone wronged you when the only person wronging you is your goddamn self." There was a bite to my mother's tone that I hadn't heard before or at least I hadn't heard it since I was a troublemaking teenager. She meant business, and I was a smart enough man to know there was no way I was escaping without listening.

My mom leaned back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest, her blue-ish gray eyes laser-focused on my face. "I don't understand you, Colton. You obviously want to explore things with Lennie. You're obviously attracted to her. Hell, I knew that the second she walked up at the grocery store! I could see your eyes 'bout to bug outta your damn head!"

I frowned... or more, I pouted and mumbled: "They were not."

"Hush. I'm talking," Mom snipped. "Then you get all sorts of growly grizzly bear when Carter makes a move on her, even though you refuse to do a damn thing, and shatter your own bar's equipment and stomp around some more. Finally come to your damn senses and make a bit of progress, just to shoot yourself in the goddamn foot. What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"You got time? There's a list."

"Colton," my mom sighed, rolling her eyes at my attempt to turn the conversation into a joke. "This has got to stop. You have got to let go of the past. You're driving me up the damn wall."

"I mean, maybe if you, I don't know, decided to mind your own business..."

"It IS my business, Colt," Mom interrupted. "You're my son. My baby. You may be damn near thirty-three, but you're still my child and it breaks my heart to see you hiding yourself from the world."

"I'm not..."

"The hell you're not. All you do is hang out around here or at the bar..."

I let out a defiant chuckle. "I OWN the bar, Ma. I'm supposed to be there."