Angels Like You

Problem Solved

I stood beside Rita as we watched my mom check my bags. My school backpack was slung over one of my shoulders. The car ride had been silent. There was nothing to say when your mother was kicking you out and sending you to live with a piece of shit.

Maybe that was the point, though. He was a piece of shit. I was turning into a piece of shit. We could be pieces of shit together. A shit party. It shouldn't have been funny, but I found myself suppressing a laugh.

Mom turned to me when she got my bags checked. I was on my own between security and the plane. They wouldn't budge in letting Rita go through. Security, evidently, was going to keep an eye on me. I doubted they would do a very good job.

"Oh, Rhys," Mom said as she pulled me to her for a hug. I stood stiff as she held onto me tightly. "I don't want to do this. I really don't. We have just run out of options. You...I think this is the best way to find yourself again."

I didn't say anything. What could I say to her? Anything that was going to come out was going to be spiteful and it wouldn't change anything. And I was going to find myself with my dad? A man who didn't know what he even wanted? I didn't know how that was supposed to work and I wasn't going to try too hard to figure it out.

"I believe in you, honey. You are going to go out there and you are going to find a new group of friends and you are going to love your life again. I just know it." She stepped back and rubbed my arms. "You'll rise above all of the shit you were involved in here."

She was crying and looked pathetic. She didn't have to send me away and it was pissing me off that she thought there was nothing she could do. Like I was the one who was deciding to leave.

I didn't have anything that I needed to rise above of. I was content with the choices I had made and I was, for the most part, able to accept the consequences of my decisions. I wasn't the best student, but I was smart enough to know the consequences of the decisions I made. The only consequence I hadn't predicted was my mom sending me away.

"Sending me across the country isn't going to change who I am, Mom," I said coolly. "That's not how it works."

Mom sniffled and looked down at her hands that now were clutching my arms. "I have too much on my plate, honey. I can't help you properly and care for the other kids."

I jerked out of her grasp. "That's not on me. You chose to take them in."

She looked up at me sharply. "What was I supposed to do, Rhys? They had nowhere to go!"

"Maybe," I replied coolly, "you should have sent them to foster care like you threatened to send your actual son! A good parent, not even a great parent, does not send their kid away because their kid is too hard to manage with eight kids who aren't their own."

Her slap on my face should have hurt. It should have stung. But I didn't feel anything. I stared at her, as did the other strangers around us, as she stepped away from me.

"This is happening, Rhys, because I am the adult and this is what is best for you. It's what is best for the family. You can hate me if you want, but you need to do some inner reflection," she said in a low voice. "If you do not get your shit together, you will be in prison before you are nineteen. I'm trying to save your fucking life."

I snorted and looked away. "We're not a family, Mom. We haven't been since you forced me to take care of those kids."

She shook her head. "Could you be any more selfish?" She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose as she held a hand out towards me. "Rhys...one day...one day I hope that you learn that life is full of difficult choices and you will realize that this was one of them." She opened her eyes and looked at me. "Do you honestly believe that I want to send my son away? Because if you do, you are more fucked up than I thought you were. You've left me with no other option. None. I'm trying to save your fucking life and I don't know what else I can do to make you realize that!"