Not a Reunion

Chapter 13

Thea

By the time we head to my house, I'm starting to get really angsty. I hadn't expected to get this nerve wrecked over meeting my family again. It wasn't as if I was visiting them after many years; it had just been over three months. I had seen them often, but never once did I feel this kind of panic over seeing them again.

I knew why it was. I knew it was because I was afraid to see the state my mom was in. I was afraid to see how she was fairing, and if it wasn't good, then I'm not sure how I would feel afterward.

"I'm scared," I whisper when I stand at my doorstep. Mason is walking up the stairs with both of the suitcases, his eyes pinned at the door. He seemed to be getting angsty as well; he seemed to be feeling a little unlike himself. or rather, the self that he had created in the last few years. Right now, he seemed like the person he was six years ago.

That scared me. So, freaking bad.

I shake away the thoughts and hear Mason say, "I'm so fucking scared it's not funny."

"The way you curse now is," I say with a chuckle, then I feel dumb. I was telling Mason, who was twenty-four, how weird it was that he was cursing. That was so ironic. Mason only shakes his head and then gives me the cue to knock on the door.

"Maybe I should use the keys," I say as I pull out my keys from my purse. "My family could be asleep right now."

"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," Mason answers with a nod and then looks up ahead, ready for me to open the door. I nod, and then, once I find the keys, I unlock the door. When I have the door unlocked, I take a deep breath before pushing it open. The house is eerily quiet when I get in, and my assumptions about my family being asleep are correct.

"Well," I start to speak a sentence to Mason before there comes a loud bang from inside the kitchen. My eyebrows pull together, worry edged onto my face when I hear the loud thud. What could that be? And why did I have a bad feeling about it? Mason slips my purse off my shoulder before whispering, "Go."

I take off in an instant, needing to know what was wrong. I head into the hallway and toward the kitchen, where I hear the rummaging of a woman who was in there. I get into the kitchen to find my mom on the floor, on her hands and knees, as she tries to clean up the content that fell on the floor.

Oh my God. As I move forward, I notice that there is liquid on the floor and glass everywhere. I could smell the strong stench of the alcohol from where I stood.

"Mom," I call out, trying to ignore how my mom was actively trying to clean the floor, getting glass shards all over her hands. She looks up when she sees me, and she wipes her blood-stained hand on matching red hair as her eyes meet mine.

There was exhaustion on her face, but as soon as she recognized her daughter in front of her, she was off the floor and heading toward me. "Thea!" she shouts out loudly in glee, the sound carrying off the walls of the silent house. She wraps her arms around my shoulder, and the weight of her body is suddenly heavy. She was never this heavy, and I would know that.

My mother had always given me bone-crushing hugs, but this was different. There was something about this hug that made me question whether she was alright or not. There are sniffles in my ear, and I can feel her slipping her hand underneath my hair to hug me tighter. I try not to cringe at the fact that the blood she had on her hands would stain my white hoodie red.

"Mom," I whisper in her hair, trying to find reasoning for what could be happening. I feel my mom shake her head, and when she takes a deep breath in, I can hear how exhausted she sounds. I can hear all her emotions fall away from her. She presses a wet kiss onto the top of my hair and pulls away.