Visions of Fate

9. BEYOND THE DOOR: UNCERTAINTY AWAITS

"So that's only what it took to crack me up," Mom was saying with such an animated tone, it cracked my heart to know that I wasn't paying full attention. But how could I when I'd hardly gotten sleep in the first place? I really needed to search online for a guide to handle parents while trying to manage your own inner conflicts, that just proved as stubborn as the former.

I was lucky Mom stood behind me at the opposite end of the L-shaped island. While she was chopping ham for a breakfast sandwich, I stood in front of the coffee maker, trying my best to sleep, listen and wait all at once, and boy was that a thousand percent harder than it sounded.

"Can you believe that?!" My eyes jolted open at the sudden shriek, and I searched around frantically for the fire that had suddenly erupted in our kitchen. But then my eyes stopped in their tracks when they met a wide eyed Mom, waiting painfully innocently for my reaction. One that accommodated that wide grin that slapped whatever glint of happiness my heart held unto.

Shuffling awkwardly in my position, I feigned a broad smile and a look of interest. "Yeah Mom, that was really…" I racked my brain for the right word. Interesting? Unfortunate? Fascinating? "Something," the word slipped right off my lips, and I desperately hoped she didn't see my disinterest.

"Wasn't it?" My naive mother's eyes sparkled in amusement before she went back to the ham she continued chopping. "And to think I even showed up in the first place."

"Mhm," I poured my freshly brewed coffee into one of my favorite cat mugs and reached for a cabinet to collect the sugar and milk cans.

"Anyways, Steward was waiting for me when I stepped out of the hotel so luckily he drove me home after everything was over."

"Mhm," I hummed distractedly, plopping two cubes of sugar into the steaming coffee and adding three spoons of milk.

"But before we could reach the house, his brakes fell loose and we seared down a cliff and fell to our demise."

"Mhm – wait what?" My attention was brought back to Mom, right before I caught her sarcastic tone.

"You know, if you weren't interested in my story you could have just said something from the beginning." Mom didn't look quite as upset as I'd thought she would be, but make the guilt taste any better.

My face fell flat as I was hit with a fresh wave of guilty conscience. Either that or it was the lack of sleep and exhaustion having its effect on me. "Sorry Mom, I've just…been going through a lot lately," I cradled the heated mug in my palms, seeking for warmth as the heat pierced through the ceramic and right into my palm, with the fresh wave of sweetened coffee tempting my nostrils.

Mom's eyebrows seemed to form a crease as she seemed to take in my appearance, the same that stared at me from the mirror earlier this morning. My eyes were now black and puffy from the stress deprived sleep. Crispy, tangled hair from lack of personal hygiene, washed, baggy clothes I had carelessly thrown on after a cold evening bath last night, all added up together to make me look like the the personalized version of depression.

I couldn't even stand the sight of my own skin that had gotten so pale, I would have looked like the real-life version of Elsa from frozen if my own white hair hadn't suffered from a chronic disease only the world's best scientist could determine.

"What's wrong honey?" And there went Mom 2.0 swooping in to save her only child from this river she was drowning in. Going into full on Mom-mode, she abandoned her chopping board and knife, rushing over to place a tender palm on my cheek, smelling like fresh coffee, clean soap, and a hint of antiseptic. "What's really going on? The past few weeks now you've looked and acted like you're carrying the whole world on your shoulder or something. That isn't the Emily that smiled and laughed during movie night barely four months ago."