Motherless

38

Few weeks later

Talia

I wasn't planning to feel like this today.

I was just trying to exist. Stay quiet. Stay out of the way. Be invisible enough to make it through the day without anyone noticing how close I am to shattering.

But I guess it caught up with me anyway.

Mom's sitting on the couch with her laptop, looking all peaceful like people do when they're not constantly being ripped apart inside. I'm hovering near the bookshelf, pretending to care about some book I already read twice.

She doesn't even look up when she speaks. "Y'know, I keep meaning to ask—how does that book end? The one you made me buy and then ditched halfway through."

I glance over my shoulder. "Which one?"

"The one with the pretty cover and the aggressively annoying main character."

I almost laugh. Almost. "She dies."

Mom blinks and looks up. "Wait, what?"

"Kidding," I say, easing into the armchair like my skin doesn't feel too tight for my body. "She lives. Just has a depressing arc."

"So... you, basically."

"Wow. Rude."

She smiles, and for a second, the world tilts into something close to warm.

She closes her laptop and stretches. "Alright, I'm starving. I was thinking pasta tonight. Garlic bread if I'm feeling generous."

"I could eat," I say, even though my stomach feels like a knot.

"Bold words from someone who only touched two bites of lunch yesterday," she calls as she heads toward the kitchen. "I'll call you when it's ready."

I nod, but I don't move.

Not yet.

I wait until I hear the sound of the cabinet door opening, then the clink of a pot against the stove.

And then I slip into my room and close the door behind me. Quiet. Careful.

I lock it.

Not because Mom's ever busted in. She hasn't. But still... just in case.

Everything in my room is in place. Clean. Orderly. I keep it that way so it doesn't match how messy my brain feels.

I sit down at the edge of my bed and stare at my hands. I've never done this before. Never even let myself think about it this seriously. But today feels... different.

Worse.

My chest is heavy. It's like I've been holding my breath all day, and I can't remember how to let it go.

Becca called me "charity case" again today.

Peter wouldn't even look at me in the hallway. Like I'm too weird to acknowledge.

And everyone else? Just stares. Just whispers. Or worse, nothing at all. Like I don't even exist.

And I keep wondering... if mom knew how I really felt—how broken and heavy and wrong I feel all the time—would she still keep me?

Would she still want me?

I glance at my desk, wiping at my eyes as they start to burn.

That stupid pencil sharpener is sitting there like it's daring me.

I don't know why I pick it up.

I unscrew the bottom and hold the tiny blade in my palm. It feels small. Harmless.