twisted ✔️ (being edited)

8 | work and flirt

one week later

As I'm getting ready for another dreadful shift, I hear two knocks on the door as Mom lets herself in. "Oh, you work today?"

"Yes, Mom. I told you that earlier," I remind her of when she asked after I got home from school. "I work four-thirty to eleven tonight."

"You can't expect me to remember everything, Codi," She defends with an eye roll. "Anyway, I wanted to come and tell you that I had a job interview today. I got it!"

"That's great, Mom!" I walk over and hug her. "Where at?"

"At that salon near the mall," Mom explains as she sits on the edge of my bed, adjusting the buttons on her new and designer shirt. I stare at her shirt, curious, because she didn't have or wear anything like that when Dad was still here. She isn't the type to care about expensive brand names. "Sandy's Beauty-to-Go Salon. Might as well put my old talents to work again and get paid for it."

"I remember how much you loved doing that." With a laugh I tell her, "You'd always beg me to let you cut my hair instead of spending fifty bucks for some stranger to do it."

Mom sighs with a sad smile. "Well, your father didn't." She leans back, crossing her legs, and mumbles, "He didn't like the idea of me touching stranger's hands and hair."

"Yeah, he was always kind of a germ freak," I whisper, softly laughing as I sit down beside her. It's been one month since his accident. "Do you miss him?"

She grabs my hand and squeezes it. "Of course, Codi. I will always miss him."

"I can't stop thinking about him," I admit, a tear thinking down my cheek and I quickly wipe it away. My voice cracks when I speak again. "H-He was supposed to see me walk across the stage at graduation. He said he was so proud of me and he's not even here to see my graduate."

Mom cups my cheeks. "He will, Codi."

I roll my eyes. "What, looking down from Heaven?" I joke as I start crying.

"Codi..." She wraps her arms around me and holds me in a tight hug. I sob into her sleeve. "I'm so sorry. I know how hard it is to lose someone. I'd give anything to have him back. For you." She strokes my hair and kisses my forehead. I peek a look and notice she's crying, too. "It sucks. It fucking sucks how bad it hurts. It really does, but—"

"We have to move on," I finish for her, wiping under my nose. "I know, but I don't want to! It's not fair! Why did that drunk driver get away with it?"

"A lot of things aren't fair, Codi," Mom whispers as she stands and poses in front of the mirror, checking her makeup. She runs a freshly-new polished finger over the collar of her new designer shirt. "And we can't control anything."

I can't stop staring at her shirt. Why is she buying expensive clothes when she was just saying she needed to save money for the house and bills? "Is that a new shirt, Mom?"

She glances down before turning with a smile. "Oh, you like it? Yes, it's new. I think the colors flatters my skin tone, don't you think?"

"Where did you get it?" I ask and when she gives me a questioning look, I shrug. "B-Because it's cute, I thought I would get something similar. Isn't that brand so expensive, though?"

"It was a gift, Codi," Mom states, her whole demeanor changing as she looks back in the mirror straightens her shoulders, her lips pressed together in a fine line. "Have a good shift." She leaves without saying anything else.

There's something off with Mom, and as a dark thought enters my mind, I ignore it push it away.

***