Better is a big word

98 6 0
                                        

I watch Mom reading from the door way to the upstairs office again and then keep walking. I feel a little like a stalker, walking past rooms she's been in all day without actually getting up the courage to enter any of them and talk to her. I could do this, it was one conversation. We had plenty of them in the past, conversations way heavier than this one would be. Turning around I walk past the door again but don't stop at all this time when I get to it. I was supposed to stop, why aren't my legs even stopping for a moment anymore? Pushing my back against the hallway wall I slid down to the floor laying my head on my knees. Hi Mom, do you have a minute to talk? Hi mom, I would love to. Hi, can you talk? I was just wondering. "Max honey, are you still there? You've walked by three times, is everything ok?"

I curl into myself more and feel my cheeks flush. "I- yeah I'm here."

"Did you... do you want to talk to me?"

Yes. No. "Maybe..."

"Ok, should I..." she hesitates, "should I come out there?"

"No!" My heart speeds up. "No, um just stay there..."

"Ok, is everything alright?" Fuck not really. I want to reply but no words come out of my mouth. "Max, are you still there?" I must have stopped talking for longer than I thought I did.

"Uh, yeah I'm here. Sorry."

"It's ok honey. I'd really like it if I could come out and we could-"

"No, I- I think it might be easier to talk to you like this." My voice falters.

"Ok, what did you want to talk about?" Her voice is soft, much softer than the one she normally uses when we talk, the one where she's already half frustrated with me and tries to pawn me off to someone else to talk to. It reminds me of being a little kid. Of when I used to come home from school crying over something small at recess and she'd comfort me. My heart aches a little thinking about it, so much has changed.

"I'm..." Just be one hundred percent honest with her, but be prepared for whatever she has to say back. Be open. Everyone has been telling me that lately so maybe it's time I try it. "I'm scared, to talk to you."

"Oh." She pauses and it feels like it takes ages for her to speak again. "So am I." She is? Why would she be afraid to talk to me?

"You are?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Why are you afraid to talk to me?"

"Because I know I'm not very good at it and I always mess up or say the wrong things. I want to be there for you, only I worry I don't know how to be there for you in the way you need me to be."

"Mom I-" I let out a big breath of air before continuing. "There isn't really a right or wrong way for you to be there for me, you just... you have to be there."

"I know." She stops and now I can hear her through the wall take a few slow deep breaths in and out. "I'm really sorry I haven't been sweetie. I know things have been difficult, and I've pushed you away. I think sometimes it feels like the reason everything turned out the way it has is my fault. That I've failed you as a mother, and that I'm the problem here. I just couldn't handle that. That's why I thought someone else helping you who knows what they're doing would be better for both of us. But really I know it was just so I could keep ignoring the truth of the situation. I realize now how wrong that's been. You had to face it, you didn't get that choice, and I left you alone to do it. I need to face that this is my fault, I need to face that there's a problem here. That I am the problem." This felt different than our past attempts at talking. I felt like I could really see her in a way I hadn't before. She was opening up to me and I was hearing her even if I didn't fully understand or agree with what she was saying. It was sort of feeling like a real conversation now.

It Doesn't Even MatterWhere stories live. Discover now