Ones Ignored

Chapter 45 | "Ice cream tastes better on you anyway "

Jameson and I are sitting on the couch at his home, not his— his mom's house. She is wiping at tears as Maeve runs a hand up and down her spine. 

Jameson tries not to roll his eyes at the affection (fails but that's okay as he was looking at me when he did). He sighs and leans forward in his seat, “Why am I here, mom?” 

Jameson was calling his mother mom still, that was a goood sign. He still needed a parent figure in his life even if he had moved out and is living away from here. I still wanted Jameson to at least have someone. 

Jameson's mother wipes at her eyes and says, “Come back home.” 

My boyfriend tenses beside me, his hand in mine tightening. He hadn't expected for his mom to say that. He doesn't say anything and his mom continues for him. “Come back home, Maeve needs you.” 

“I know my sister needs me”, Jameson says and then sighs again— a tired one. “But if I were to come back, would it be the same? Would you continue to neglect me?” 

His mom scoffs at that and I watch her with my eyes squinted. Did she think her son was going to come back if she continued to make him feel less? She places a hand on her knee– the one that her wedding ring still rests at— and says, “I didn't neglect you.” 

Jameson looks at me and then takes his hand away from mine. I watch as he clasps his own hands together and lets out a long breath. “You knew he hurt me! You saw the marks on my back. But you didn't care about me.” He leans forward and says, “You watched him argue with me, pick fights on everything I did. You watched and yet you did nothing.” 

“What could I have done?”, his mother throws back quickly and I'm taken aback. She sounded angry; her son accusing her made her defensive. 

“Told him to stop”, Jameson answers, his chest rising and falling with the angery he was consuming. He couldn't stay calm right now. 

His mom rolls her eyes, “You were fine on your own. You're strong.” 

“But I wasn't”, Jameson shouts startling both Maeve and I from the intensity in his voice. His mother merely blinks. “You think I was strong freshly at the age of nine? No, I learned to be strong because you failed to protect me.” 

“I'm not a horrible person”, his mother says quietly. 

“No you are not”, my boyfriend says from beside me, deflating at his mother's manipulation tactics and then finally looks his mother in the eye. “You aren't a horrible mother either— not to Maeve anyway. You just are horrible to me and I'm not going to stay here if you continue to not care about me.” 

Jameson stands up, his hand grabbing for under my arm. He pulls me up and says, “Start the car.” 

“We are leaving?”, I whisper. 

“When I'm done cutting off ties with my mother”, he says. I shake my head and place my hand on the collar of his shirt and he meets my eye finally, not looking at his mother now. He takes a deep breath in and I say, “You can't cut off ties with her.” 

“She doesn't care about me”, Jameson whispers sounding so small. Sounding like a child whose mother doesn't care about him and I guess that wasn't too far off. His mother didn't care about him and even though Jameson was eighteen he was still a child— her child. 

I place my hand into the back of his neck and play with the hair there. “Look at her”, I say to him and gesture to his mother. “She is sitting here asking for you to come back.” 

“Doing a horrible job at it”, Jameson adds with a frown. I nod and say, “But she is here, sweetheart. She may not know how to fix things with you right now, but these things take time. You don't need to stay here, you can continue to stay at your apartment. But don't cut ties with her. She is all you have right now and I know it doesn't seem ideal, but you guys can grow a relationship.”