Like My Mother

Chapter Twelve

For the rest of the day, Jase helps me unpack my things into the room I was given. When we finish mine, we move across the hall to unpack his. The entire time my family leaves us to ourselves while they go out to a movie. Apparently it is something they do here every week.

Jase and I don't really talk as we unpack his things, but it's a comfortable silence. We both have a lot to think about, a lot has happened. I just hope he isn't regretting coming here with me.

Looking up at him from my spot on his bed, where I'm folding clothes, I watch as he places a photo of his family on the dresser. "Do you regret coming with me?" I whisper.

Jase turns around and looks at me, his blue eyes shining brightly. "Regret coming with you? What made you ask that?" He asks.

"I don't know. Now I think about it, I didn't give you much choice. I took you from your family." I mumbled, looking down at my lap.

Jase sighs and comes around the bed to sit in front of me. He rest one hand on my thigh and uses the other to tilt my chin up. "You didn't take me away from my family, I don't regret coming with you one bit." He whispers, brushing the pad of his thumb across my cheek.

"Did you even tell them?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Do you wanna hear a story?" I nod. "My dad left when I was four, he cheated on my mum and got another women pregnant. I haven't seen him since I was 10 and learned what happened. So my mom went into deep depression and it was just me and my older brother. Mom would go to work, come home and sleep. It was up to Lucas and I to cook dinner and clean the house."

As he tells the story, I study his facial expressions. His eyes have grown red, but no tears have escaped and his face looks as if he is heart broken. Just the sight of him makes me want to cry. I reach out and pull him into a lying down position, with his head rested in my lap as I run my fingers through his hair, trying to relax him.

Rubbing his eyes, he continues. "So it went on for about a year before I began to realize something wasn't right. She had lost a lot of weight, her skin was bad and she had dark bags under her eyes. She looked sick and in a way, she was." He licks his lips and closes his eyes.

"My mom... She became a drug addict. She looked to drugs to take away from the pain of my dad leaving her. Luke caught her one day, and tried to snatch them away from her. Even though he was a strong 17 year old at this point, mom don't hesitate to smack him until he was forced to run from her for his safety."

A tear looks from the corner of his eye and I lean down to kiss it away. "Luke and I kind of just let her be after that. We took care of ourselves and kind of her too still, we always made sure we made extra food for her. This went on for about another year. She left us the money and we provided for ourselves. But one when Luke and I were about to leave for school, he pointed out that mom was still home, she usually left for work before we got up." His lips began to quiver and more tears leaked from the corners of his eyes. "Luke made me sit on the couch and wait for him to come back so we could leave, but I was a nosey 12 year old... So I followed. My mom was lying across her bed on her back, vomit filled her mouth and her eyes were rolled back. Luke was shaking the hell out of her and screaming, 'mom!!! Wake up, mom!' Over and over again. My mom... She..." He choked and began sobbing in my arms.

"Shh, shh. It's okay." I cooed to him as I kept kissing his tears away, one hand still knotted in his hair while the other runs up and down his arm.

Slowly he sits up, only to pull me into a tight embrace while he cries. With his head rested on my shoulder, and my head rested on his, I gently run his back as he cries his pain away.

He didn't have to finish his sentence for me to realize that his mother had overdosed. In all honesty, I didn't care how she went, I just know I didn't want him to be in the world of pain I know he is in. Loosing your mother is possibly the worst pain in the world, trust me, I know.