Evangiline

Chapter Twentyone- Grilled Cheese Can Do No Wrong

"Mom?" I asked.

She was home for a few minutes to gather papers from her office. I had stopped her on her way out the door.

  She reluctantly answered. "What, honey?"

"Mom...what's wrong? Last year when Tylid came over for lunch i heard yall talking about how you didn't want to tell me something. What is it?"

  My mom sucked in a deep breath. "I... I didn't know you heard."

"Yea, I did." I felt the anger bubbling inside me.

"I...I have cancer."

My heart stopped, my breathing stopped, everything seemed to just stop.

"W-what?"

"I've been gone a lot for doctor visits. Chemo mostly, and I've reviewed my options, I won't make it past this term." She spoke with defeat and pain thick in her voice. It broke me to hear her like this, to know know that my mother was going to die soon. Shes got two years left. Just two.

"Its really fucking funny how Charles, Rosy, and everyone else knew about this before me. I am your daughter.  How could you not tell me?" I screamed.

"I couldn't tell you. I didn't want to." She sounded broken, which made my cries pale in comparison.

"What the hell mom? I deserved to know."

"No, you didn't.  I knew that you would have no one to go to after I die. I don't want you to worry about it so...I got Tylid to make Charles start talking to you. It all started that day you first met at his mansion."

  "I knew mom. I knew that he didn't really like me the whole time. I mean, who fucking would right? Who would love a disgusting blind girl? No one, that's who."

  She was silent.

My heart hurt, almost like needles were pricking it. My lungs were barely functioning. The sudden realization hurt. It hurt because I was going to lose the only person I love very soon. It hurt because I knew that I was lying... because someone did love me. That person is Charles.

"Mom-" I started to ask her more about why she hid this.

"I have to go now, Ill be back." With that she walked away.

The walk back to my room was agonizingly long. I stumbled up the stairs, my cane barely helping. I was sobbing now, my eyes burned from lack of tears. I wanted a normal life. I wanted so bad to be normal. I wanted to see again, to have a normal childhood,  to have a real family. I wanted so bad to be happy. But I knew that it wasn't going to happen.

  With the thought of my mom having a death sentence, Charles​ gone, my friends pushed away, my fathers death, and absolute blindness, I wallowed in vodka and existential dread.
      
      ...............

I was at Café Dumont when we meet again. Almost two months after my mom had told me.

I sat at my usual seat and ate the usual meal. I ordered a streaming plate of jambalaya dressed in red gravy with conecuh sausage.

I slowly lifted the heavy fork in to my watering mouth. The thick, peppery gravy swam to every corner of my mouth and left behind a rich and salty taste. The rice and sausage were perfectly spiced with a little of evening. I gulped down my bitter, lemony tea and sighed. The meal was perfect.

Then I folded some money that I pulled from my jean pocket and shoved it under the bill. I turned with my cane clutched in my hands and made my way to the door.

I was almost past the loud noises when I smelt something. The scent was cheddar, butter, and crisped white wheat and a certain cologne. It was all too familiar. My heart skipped a beat. Could it be...? What were the odds of some random stranger ordering the exact same food that I loved and wearing the same cologne that only the rich can afford? One in a million. It had to have been Charles.

I let my nose lead me to it like those cartoon characters floating towards the smell of freshly baked pie. I tapped my way around a corner, then a long row of tables. Then I stopped.

The smell was right there. Behind the cheesy sandwich was another nostalgic aroma.

"Charles?" I said into the clouds of desire that loitered in front of me.

Whoever-it-was gasped. Their sharp intake of breath was followed by the sound of a heavy metal chair falling back. I jumped in my skin.

"Evangiline?" The voice asked.

  It was him. Charles Heiden.

  Fear and nostalgia washed over me. I shuttered and felt my pulse rise rapidly. I didn't want to see him. Yet I did in a way.

   I remembered the way he got on my nerves and sometimes made me smile and most importantly the way he lied to me. He hid my mom cancer from me for months.  Months that I could have been spending with her instead of him. I wasted so much time. And it was all his fault.