Susceptible

Chapter twenty

If I was going to change one moment in my life this would have been it.

Sam wouldn't have looked at me the way he did, his eyebrows furred, his eyes wide, his lip curled back have in disgust. Like he wanted nothing to do with me. Like he never wanted to see me again. Like he didn't even know me.

He wouldn't have yelled at the sky in anger. Wouldn't have cut me off every time I tried to explain myself. Wouldn't have made me feel the amount of regret I did in that moment.

But I deserved it. I deserved his disgust, I wanted him to hate me. I knew I deserved it.  Because that was better than when he still didn't let me walk home alone. When he didn't abandon me there like he should've. When he still came in and politely said goodbye to my mom. He was still too good, a true superhero at heart, and that was what hurt the most.

I broke down  when he walked out the door, he had been all smiles sparing me from my mom knowing something was terribly horribly wrong between us. So when she ran to side asking for the reason behind my tears I was able to lie. Able to blame it on something else other than the fact that Sam made my heart feel like it had been ripped out of my chest. Able to slip away to my room without my mom's suspicions too high.

I didn't see Sam for ten days. I texted, called, I even tried leaving him letters for in the night, but there was never a cracked window or shuffle in the night letting me know he had been to see me. The loneliness and pain of those I had lost haunted me as I was letting the last few days of summer slip away from me.

I was sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal in my pajamas at 12:45 when my mom came into the kitchen.

"I've run out of days to take off." She said sitting down across from me. Her hair was pulled back and I looked at the wrinkles by her eyes I had never seen before. I wondered if it was possible for her to have aged so much while I had been gone. I nodded my head.

"I understand Mom, you need to go back to work." My statement didn't seem to ease her conscious as she rubbed her temples.

"I don't want to leave you alone though. I'm scared to leave you alone now." she paused as her voice cracked at the end, took a deep breathe and continued, "I already talked to Mrs. Walker and she would be more than happy to have to stay with them while I'm gone, and that she missed you and needed someone else in the house now too."

I looked away. Sam had apparently not talked to his mom either. Everything was different now. Before there would no question about where I would have stayed. I would have been at the Walkers all the time anyways. My mom wouldn't have been worried about leaving me alone in a city that was so safe. But none of that was the case now.

"The therapist thinks it will be good for you too. For you to get back into a routine, into your familiar environment." Ah, there was the other thing. The therapist my mom was making me see. I refused to talk to her, to tell her anything about my experience, because how could I explain? She still worked in my favor though, telling my mom about how my behavior was caused by post traumatic stress. That I may have a hard time getting back into normal life after being locked away for so long, that I may be moody and withdraw myself from others.

I let her explanations do all the work, so I then didn't have to explain myself to my mom. The reason for my behavior, the lack of Sam around, the lack of motivation to do anything really.

"Okay." I replied still refusing to make eye contact. My mom's hand came across and rested on mine.

"That's another part you need closure on too Adriana." She was talking about Gabe, yet another thing I didn't want to be reminded of. I shrugged my shoulders and went back to eating my cereal until my mom finally gave up and disappeared into her room.