I JUST WANT YOU TO LIKE ME | ✓

▬ 29: husband-son

I can't shake the habit of entering silently. My body has trained itself to ensure its presence is unfelt in this house, not like the draft Má blows through it or the lighting that is Iris. Even when I call into it, 'Hello? Má?' my voice turns into dust, absorbed into the white walls.

Just as I turn into the kitchen, Má stands from the table with a screech of her chair legs. 'I've been–!'

Her eyes snag on my septum ring, and her already-frazzled face screws up. Is it new? Is it a prank? Is she hallucinating? But then she sees the tattoos that circle my biceps, unhidden by a jumper or hoodie, and for a moment, she's suspended. Then she decides these are not the worst of my offences.

'I've been phoning you for days. You can't just not answer. I've been worried about you!'

'Worried? You've just been worried you won't be able to offload all your issues onto me for five minutes.'

'Miles!' Má berates. Her eyes ricochet across my features, scouring for a seam that proves I'm a stranger who has shown up wearing a mask of her son's face — or is it her husband's face?

It's odd hearing the name from her mouth. She never calls me Miles. It's sobering too, like the spell is broken and, for once, I'm not Ba and I'm not Thỏ. I'm just a person who has no stakes in disappointing or pleasing her.

Still, I reflect her horror. The surveillance state around my tongue has finally worn down — not defeated but simply deteriorated from overuse — and my newfound freedom reveals to be more than I can chew. I don't want to talk to her like this.

'I'm sorry.' I can't quite look at her as I cross the room to sit at the kitchen table. 'I need to talk to you.'

Má stays standing. 'I need you to talk to your sister about her summer job. Apparently, she hardly shows up and she's rude when she does — I've already had to beg them for a second chance, but they'll sack her if she don't start showing up.'

'Okay.' My body jerks as it instinctively tries to stand, to serve out its orders.

Don't bend. "Communicate your feelings even when it feels difficult," Dr Qureshi's voice reminds. I lock my ankles around the chair legs to keep myself seated.

'But now, I need to talk to you.'

Má crosses her arms but eventually returns to her seat. I wait, wait for her broiling anger to soothe, but it only swells, raising the temperature a few degrees higher than it already is. Sweat seeps out of my skin.

I massage my collarbone and force myself to look at her. 'I love Ziri.'

Confusion strikes through her ridicule. This is not what she thought I came here to say.

'I'm gonna be with him as long as I can. I'm sorry if that's not what you imagined for me. You don't have to like him, but I love him, and you can either learn to respect that or you can not be in my life.'

Má's cheeks brighten with blotches of red. 'Don't be stupid.'

'But that's me: the stupid one.'

'Miles, your family comes first. The fact that he's making you choose–'

'No, you are. We've been dating for five years, and you still treat him like he's temporary.'

Dr Qureshi's reminders that I can only control my own delivery and not how people respond to it disintegrate. My carefully rehearsed speech flies out the window. Something base in me just needs to see blood that's not mine for once.

'You're just like Bà. You do realise that, right? You're gonna be exactly the mother-in-law you hate so much.'

Má starts to yell, but cuts herself off after a single note, and it's left to echo through our morgue of a house. The fever recedes into her body. Shrinking, she spins her wedding ring.