The Renovation Complication

38. Broken

I need the bathroom. Badly. And not for the reason I wish I did.

I sprint through the front door.

Saliva begins to collect as a sickly sweet flavour overtakes my mouth. I'm going to throw up. I'm in the hallway but the bathroom is too far, too ambitious, too –

"Why are you home?"

And I throw up in Ashley's ornamental vase. It's not the kind of thing you really want to throw up in, either. Two hundred pounds of shiny porcelain, handcrafted by someone important somewhere exotic.

I heave again, emptying my stomach completely. I can't do this right now, be here right now, not with Alex hovering mere feet away. I will not break down, I will not cry, I will not vomit anymore.

Haunt me.

My chest heaves again and I'm coughing and choking on the acrid bile now dripping from my lips. It tastes a lot better in than out, I tell you.

"What the hell happened, are you okay?" He does not touch me, does not make any move to pull the hair from my face as I rush to the kitchen sink. The hallway now has been successfully scented with the contents of my stomach. My brother follows me tentatively, golden eyes wide with horror.

I don't answer him as I rinse out my mouth, and swallow a gallon of water to soothe the sting in my throat. It doesn't work as well as I'd hoped.

"Vic, are you sick again?" I finally face him, using the counter to support my weight. Greif seems to turn my muscles into jello.

He's still wearing his faded football jersey, even though he's home for the day. He should probably be training with his excess time, as his coach instructed, but I doubt he planned on leaving his room until the game started.

Tonight, there will be an entire football team playing a game that doesn't matter. What matters is that it's my mother's birthday and instead of dancing at a party she's decomposing in a coffin. Because of me.

She's Alex's mom, too.

The realisation hits me like a slap in the face, and I stare at the boy standing in front of me for a while longer. Does he know? Does he know that his mother should have been turning forty two long, slow years today? That even though he stopped thinking about her four years ago, she shouldn't have stopped breathing four months before her birthday. She shouldn't have stopped breathing at all.

"What. Happened." His eyebrows furrow in frustration at my inability to form a response. His attention span has never been great.

He deserves to know, a voice whispers to me. That's right.

"It's her birthday today, Alex." I mutter, voice almost a whisper. It comes out hoarse, and the words sting my heart as well as my esophagus. My eyes stay on the tiles through the silence.

"What?"

What?

"It's her birthday." How much more obvious do I have to make it?

"Whose birthday? Katherine's?" I feel my forehead crinkle at the comment. I don't know whether to feel irritated or offended.

"Her birthday, Alex." I growl, "Mom's birthday." I finally look up to find a blank expression on his tanned features.

"This," He pauses slightly, face darkening slightly. "is why you came home sick? Because it's her birthday?"

I gasp at his bluntness. How dare he? My - I mean – our mother isn't breathing on the day she was born and he's scolding me for being upset? "Yes." I frown, insulted. "Aren't you upset?"