I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 23: prisoner of war

I had ignored my alarm much longer than was wise. We were running late again.

My fingers were clumsy as I knotted Iris's uniform tie, which she still couldn't do without it looking a mess. 'I don't have time to braid it today,' I apologised as I finished brushing her hair. 'We're leaving in ten minutes. Ten minutes, Iris. Not twelve, not fifteen.'

I still walked Iris to school then, though she was old enough to go by herself, just because she was so easily distracted that I couldn't trust she wouldn't start chasing a squirrel and be three hours late. I waited for confirmation that she understood before I hurried down the stairs. Stuffing a cold sausage roll into my mouth, I packed her lunch and microwaved a pastry for her to eat for breakfast on the way.

At the threshold to the living room, my legs filled with lead, and I had to force myself to step over it like I was dragging my own dead body with me. Má's face was pale in the glow of the telly, so close to a skull that I could've thought she was dead if it weren't for the steady rise and fall of her breaths.

Má had been sacked again, so she was weird again, or maybe she was weird and that's why she was sacked. Either way, she hadn't left the sofa for days.

Without sudden movements, I sat on the edge of the sofa by her cold feet. I tucked her throw blanket around them.

'Má?' I waited for a sign of life, but she didn't even seem to hear me. I placed a hand on her shoulder and, when it elicited no response, shoved gently. Her dull eyes slugged to me. 'Can you make dinner today? I can't cause I've college and then I've football so I won't be home till nine.'

I waited. Nothing.

'Má? Are you listening? You have to get Iris food cause she's eight and she'll eat Maltesers for dinner. Okay?'

Má did something that might've been a nod, but the dread in me only swelled.

'Where are you?' Her voice scraped through a dry throat, so harrowingly empty that a shiver yanked at my spine.

'I'm right here, Má.'

'You're home less.'

I plummeted. Or at least my stomach did. For a moment, I thought she was kicking me out, that she'd found out about Dominic, about me, that he'd finally pumped me so full of shame that it split over for her to see. Then I realised she said home less, not homeless.

'I've got work, haven't I?'

I did have work. I had asked to return to my old summer job at the Seven Eleven near school for a few nights a week — I had thought it would help with her stress, but she hardly noticed. Still, the real reason I'd been home less was Dominic. 

Her eyes cut to me. I had become so used to their glaze that when she focused on me for the first time in days, she might as well have thrown a harpoon through my head. 'You think I'm a bad mother.'

Instinctively, I flinched away, and though it was only a centimetre or two, she noticed. Fuck.

'No. Má, I'm sorry.' I knew the apologies were futile. It would take me days to make up for recoiling from her like that.

'Your Bà Nội thinks so.' Her voice was so shrill, I had to fight the urge to cover my ears. Má sat up, invigorated by her anger. 'She wants to take you from me. Is that where you go? You go conspire with her on how she can take you from me.'

Words died before they reached my lips. I opened and closed my mouth like a fish. It must've looked like guilt because Má seized me by the shoulders.

'You're my kids. My kids. Not hers. I'm your mother.'