SomeWhere On... (BXB)

...Fulbourne Road

Mum comes out with steaming tea. It's 21 Centigrade, which means it's hotter inside than it is outside. She also brings out some chocolate-covered digestive biscuits. She puts them on a flowery plate in the middle of the table. There's one of those lacy white things under it.

"This is rare, innit?" she asks, sitting down across from me. "Wha' is i'?"

I glare down at the floor. "I'm just here because I promised to do it myself."

Her brows narrow. She picks up a cup. "Wha?"

I inhale. "You never really liked me, did you?"

The tea's at her lips, but she takes it down. "Wha'd make you think tha'?" She takes a sip from it.

"Just...stop for a second, okay?" I take in a breath. I can feel my body shaking. "I don't know when it started but..." I look at her. "...you treated me like I was nothing because I couldn't, and wouldn't, do what you wanted me to do. And, like, I'm real sorry that we...never really had that good of a relationship 'r whatever, but I'm..." I hold up my hand. "Mum, I'm marrying Murph."

Mum coughs and puts the tea at the side. "What?"

Except the way she says it, I hear "Really?"

"And...I'm leaving to be with him."

She shakes her head. "Aren't you a li'le young to do i'?"

"Aren't you a little old to do this?" I ask. "Do you know why I asked if you didn't like me? Because no matter what I did, no matter how I did it, everything wasn't okay with you."

"Luv, some o' your choices were – "

"I didn't give a shit what you thought I was doing was right or not. And yet you, somehow, still glared down on me like you're all high n' mighty. Look around, Mum." I stand and go to the mantle. "You're no better off than anyone else right now."

She stands, enunciating her words slowly, "Do you think this is okay to talk to your mother this way?"

"You're no mother to me. Just like how Michael isn't a father to me, and how my own father wasn't a father to me. You know what you are?" I don't know what she is because I didn't think I'd get this far. So I scream into my hands and stand back up. "I'm here to tell you goodbye. Because from this point on, I'm not gonna be visiting anymore. And honestly, I don't even wanna look at you anymore."

"It won't last," she mutters, sitting back down on the couch. Mum reaches for her tea, her eyes off me.

My stomach drops, and I'm ready to murder her. Everything tells me to punch her hard in her fucking face. I told Murph this wasn't some kinda Eastenders bullshit special where everything goes back to normal with a good talk. Nothing about this makes me want her in my life anymore.

So I just whisper, "If I'm willing to cross the planet for someone, I'd be damned at this point to let it end now." And out the door I go.

Murph's standing by the gate, hands tucked into his pockets and sweat dripping down his forehead. "Hey, how'd it go?"

I sigh and wrap my arm around his neck. "I told her I didn't wanna see her anymore."

"Tommy – "

"It was her fault!" It was kinda both our faults. "She just..." My hands gripped nothing in front of me, and I groan. "She got me riled up and pissed."

Murph inhales. "Well, did you get what you wanted to say off your chest?"

"Yeah." No. I got, like, halfway through.

"I don't believe you, Tommy."

"Why?"

"Because I know you better than that." Murph pushes back his glasses, blue eyes on me. "We have to go back, and you know it. Even if this is the last time you're going to talk to her, you have to end this with everything out in the open. No resentments. No unfinished business." He glares at me. "That's how ghosts come to be." He shrugs. "And it's the right thing to do."

"I don't wanna," I grumble, and Murph loosens his grip on me.

It's only then I realise that he's running back to Mum's flat. "Murph!"

Pushing the gate open, Murph slams his hands on the door. "Mrs. Maguire!" He turns, watching me like I'm some kind of psycho monster in a horror movie, and pounds the door harder. "Mrs. Maguire!"

"Murph," I hiss, grabbing and tugging him backwards. "Stop it."

When the door opens, Mum's peers out from the hallway, wide-eyed. "Wha' the 'ell – "

Murph frees himself when he elbows me in the gut. "Mrs. Maguire, Tommy...he..." Except he's breathless and leans down, trying to catch his breath. He looks back at me through the space in his arm. "If you...don't tell her...I will."

I groan and look at her. "Mum, you were a shit parent. And I don't think I'll ever let you forget it." I bite my tongue because I want to swear at her. "But I don't want to look back on this moment and wish I hadn't said everything I wanted to." I take in a breath. "You were shit, Mum. And I'm done feeling like nothing is good enough for me anymore. I'm done, feeling like everything I do is just...nothingness."

My fiancé's upright again, watching me with sad eyes. He turns to Mum and adds, "Mrs. Maguire, a very famous person once said, 'Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.'" His arms flap to his sides. "There's enough bad shit in this world for us to fight each other. So...so I asked your son to...to stop drinking it." Murph turns and grabs me, pulling us back towards the street. "Ball's in her court now."

I look back, but Mum's already shut the door.