Sadie, Someday...

Chapter 23 - Times Like These Call For Admitting Truths

Chapter 23
Times Like These Call For Admitting Truths

“In a world full of vices, We all pay our prices, And even angels fall, What would you say if I gave this away, To be who I was before before this, What would you say if I gave this I gave this away, The pretty faces, They get me every time.” ~ Pretty Faces – Framing Hanley

The days without him seemed to drag on forever. I wanted them over with and behind me so I wouldn’t be forced to actually deal with everything around me. The time on the clock just seemed to tick on forever, nothing helping as I watched it tick by minute by minute throughout the day.

I thought it best to sleep away the day’s events instead of trying to talk to people who clearly didn’t have an interest in talking to me. Dr. Griffin said it would be best to try to make some sense of the situations around me by talking to my parents, to Isla and even to Mason. But I just wasn’t ready for the rejection I was going to face if I tried to tell them what was going on with me.

If they cared, they would have approached me a long time ago.

As I burrowing my face into my pillow to avoid the sunlight seeping through my window, I heard a slight knock on my door and picked my head up just a bit. I wanted to say, ‘Come in,’ but the words sort of just…left my head before I could say them. I wasn’t used to people knocking and asking for entrance from my bedroom door.

When I didn’t answer the next two knocks, my mother peeked her head around the door and was shocked to see me sitting up in bed. Since I hadn’t said anything to allow her to come in, she must have thought I was sleeping or something.

“Can I…come in?” she asked softly, trailing off at the end of her question like she wasn’t sure she wanted to ask it. I nodded in response, cautiously as I watched her shut the door behind her and sit down at the edge of my bed.

Her hair was primped up in a messy bun, wisps of blonde hair framing her anxious face. Her eyes looked more tired than I had remembered, wrinkles forming on the sides of her eyes that detailed how old she truly was getting…or feeling. She was dressed in a navy blue track suit, looking like the typical soccer mom she had always been. She must have dropped Isla off to her soccer game, considering it was Sunday, the official game day, and decided to come back home instead.

But why?

“What is it, Mom?” I asked, a little anxious myself that she was sitting in my room with me with a grim look on her face like she was carrying bad news. I brought the covers up around me while I waited for her to talk.

She heaved back a sob that must have been waiting in her throat. Tears started to pool in her tired eyes and I immediately felt my heart sink to the pit of my chest. Out with it already, Mom. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”

“Mom, what happened? Is everything okay?” I asked quickly, immediately thinking something happened to one of my siblings, or my dad…or Caden. Oh god, I couldn’t keep doing this back and forth thing with people getting hurt.

“Everything’s not okay,” she continued, taking in a deep breath and using a tissue she’d taken from somewhere in her pocket to wipe beneath her eyes. “I’ve been such a horrible mother to you! I should have listened. I should have known when things were going wrong with you.”

I shook my head incredulously. The feeling in my heart was coming back, no longer leaving a rock in the middle of my chest. But I still felt bad for having her sitting in front of me with apologies and tears at the thought of being a horrible mother. She wasn’t anywhere near a bad mom. As much as I wished she paid more attention to me, she still raised me. I still loved her.