Better Kept Secret

chapter 30

When I step into the apartment, it’s eerily quiet. It’s always quiet here with just the two of us, but right now, the silence seems so loud, so loud that it buzzes in my ears. I rush frantically around the apartment looking for my mother. My head goes to the worst possible scenario, that she really did freak out and did something bad. I smell something bad in the air. The air’s too stagnant and musty, creating that smell in my nostrils and that taste in the back of my throat. Or maybe that’s vomit rising. When I look in her room, and she’s not there either, I don’t know what to do. So I look in the final room I haven’t checked, mine. I push open the door and find her there.

Her hair so dark, so unlike mine, is splayed out over my pillow. Like little snakes, her curls all go separate ways, but all find root in her scalp. I reach down to touch her scalp, weave my fingers through the little snakes. She doesn’t move, but she’s breathing. She’s just asleep. Her phone is on my bedside table facing upward with our messages open. My body trembles gently as I press the off button, not wanting to be reminded of what made me leave the diner. I want to scream. I want to shake my mother awake. I want to rip my room apart, because she wanted me to come home, so she could take care of me. But she’s asleep. She's not here to take care of me, or yell at me, or ground me, or do anything anyone else's mom would do.

It makes me feel selfish for thinking that way. It's clear that she was having some sort of panic attack from her texts, but I'm still angry at her. Is that fair? Is it fair to be mad at her for something she can't control? Is it fair that the person I love most in this world hurts me the most too?

I remove my hand from her snakes, and rise up to leave the room. I go to sleep on the couch because I selfishly don't want to see my mother right now. Because I also don't want to sleep on her bed, where she slept for weeks on end.  The living room strangely seems more piled with junk than it did a week ago. But that doesn't matter. It's better than my other two options.

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Ben doesn't call me.

And I don't call him.

It's Sunday night now. Usually we send each other videos or just quick messages but nothing this weekend. It feels weird. Maybe I hurt him more than I thought I did.

Or maybe he's with Gloria, the evil voice in the back of my mind says. Thoughts of them together eat away at me. What ifs of all the possible situations in which he realizes he was wrong about me.

We could be wrong together. He's sure of himself in a way I don't think I'll ever be. He's got the perfect all American family, 2.5 kids and a house with a white picket fence. I've got a dead dad, a fucked up mom, and a yearly roach problem. But maybe that's just me feeling sorry for myself.

Or maybe it's not, and he needs the type of girl who doesn't have baggage. Not even just Gloria, anyone else.

Mom slept in today and has given me the cold shoulder. I guess she's a moody person. I don't know. I don't know anything right now. Just that it hurts to feel alone.

✦ ─ ˗ˋ ୨୧ ˊ˗ ─ ✦

It's blisteringly hot on Monday and the atmosphere in school is like everyone knows that summer is almost here. Just a couple weeks and we'll be out of school. People walk around in tank tops and flip flops, fanning their friends with binders.

I hear footsteps coming toward me, and somehow I just know that it's Ben.

"So how was your weekend?" I say, barely audible. I want to slap myself for my meekness. He opens his locker beside mine, not even glancing at me.

"Fine," he replies curtly.

"That's good." He nods. His hands pull out books from his locker and I gaze at his strong forearms.

I inhale sharply. "Are you mad at me?"

He finally looks over to me. "Why'd you just leave on Friday?"

"I told you. My mom wanted me to come home."

"It seemed like more than that," Ben says as he stuffs a book into his backpack. "You know that I'm not lying to you about Gloria, right?"

I pause. "O-of course."

"I don't know how many times I can tell you. Just trust me."

"I do trust you."

"It doesn't feel like it," he fires back.

"I don't know what you want me to say. Am I ever worried that you'll realize I'm not right for you? Yes. Is Gloria a part of that? Yes. It's just hard. It feels like you always have things under control for me, but you don't anymore." His eyes soften, but also fill with pain. He runs a hand through his hair, looking at the ceiling with his face tight.

"I can't be the person who has things under control for you. I want to be, god I want to be. I want to protect you but I can't be the only thing that keeps you on track. You need to do that, because you'll be so much happier that way."

Around us, groups of teenagers walk through the hall. They push and shove each other. They crack jokes and laugh and make loud noises. I scan the hall, breathing out deeply.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I pressure you in that way, and I'm sorry that I left Friday night."

"It's okay Winnie. I don't want to fight. I just want you." I smile lightly up at him. I don't know if everything is really resolved or if we both just want to stop talking about it, but it doesn't really matter. In fact, I forget about everything that happened and my whole weekend after he leans down to place his lips on mine. The kiss is slow and gentle, showing me that he's sorry too. When we pull apart, I look into his eyes and get a flash through my body. A zap of feeling. I love him. I love him not just because we're best friends, but because he's the only guy that I want.

"You coming to the game tomorrow?" He asks while grabbing my hand. He hoists his bag onto his shoulder and reaches out to take my books to carry them.

"You don't have to carry them Piglet." I blush.

He gives me a smile that chips away any of the pain that was on his face. "I want to. You're coming though right?"

"Of course I am." I look down at the ground suddenly feeling shy. "The whole school should know that the captain is my boyfriend." He laughs at me, smiling like he hasn't smiled in days.

"Good. I want them to know you're my girl too."