Anxiety Alley

Still Just Ben [Chapter 6]

The entire day is energized. It's like someone shoved my finger in an electric socket. I'm desperately trying to convince myself that it's not Willow, but no matter how much I repeat it, I know I'm lying. I'm not stupid, or unfortunately, immune to human emotion. 

As much as I curse myself for it, I smile ever time I think of her petite frame wrapped up in my arms. If it was socially acceptable, I'd scoop her up in my arms and run like a demon was chasing me. I bet she weighs 70 pounds soaking wet. 

But, of course, I can't. No friends, no connections, Darien made me promise. And you can't break promises with the dead. 

"Ben!" My mum calls. I wince on the third stair, but I walk dutifully to the kitchen table. 

"You don't look good. You're pale, paler than usual," she frets when I reach the room, "Do you feel any worse?" 

"No mum," I sigh, "I'm okay." A couple years ago, I tore my ACL tendon, and it hasn't been right since. At first it was just when I was running, or exercising, but lately, it's even when I'm walking. Mum thinks it's because of the new school, and how much farther I have to walk in between classes. I think it's just tired of me. 

"Are you sure you don't want your crutches?" Mum bought me these beat up old crutches when I first tore my ACL, and she wants me to take them everywhere. Sometimes I'll use them if my knee is in a lot of pain, but I refuse to use them at school or in public, anywhere I'll see anyone I know. I don't want their pity. 

"No, Mum, I'm fine. What's for dinner?" I ask, to distract her. 

"Your favorite," she beams, "Spaghetti and garlic bread." 

A weary smile warms my lips. I didn't sleep well last night. Or the night before that, or the night before that. I guess you could say I don't really sleep. I try, I really do, but my mind never slows down enough to sleep. 

The heat from the food wraps around my head and I close my eyes, taking it in. I sit down, thankful for the pressure it took off my leg. When I take my first bite of spaghetti, it burns my tongue. I spit it out and unintentionally scream. This cascades my mum into hysterics, as she says I scream like a little girl. 

"What," she gasps when she gets her breath back, "Was that?" A little of her Irish accent comes back whenever she laughs or cries. 

"You scream like a kitten thrown into a girls kindergarten class," she shakes her head. I haven't seen her laugh this hard, or at all since Lyle left a few months ago. Actually, he kicked us out. Not that it matters to me. My stepdad never was my favorite person. 

Mum and I eat the rest of our meal in inside jokes and good memories. We sit together in comfortable silence after dinner, me working on homework, her on college work. She's going back to train as a nurse. She was almost done with school when I came along. 

It wasn't like most people think. Technically I'm adopted. Her best friend in college, Lucy, got pregnant with me. She decided last minute to keep me. Mum and Aunt Lucy lived together, so she fell in love with me the moment Aunt Lucy brought me home. (Or so she says). 

Aunt Lucy said she couldn't keep me when I was two, but by then I was mostly Mum's anyway. She signed the papers, moved out, and Lucy is just Aunt Lucy. I see her a couple times a year. I met my biological dad once. It wasn't horrible, I just had no interest in seeing him after that.  When I was 8, Mum met Lyle. They got married when I was 10, and divorced a couple months ago.