Feathers

Chapter 8

After many intense hours of being thrown and kicked in several different places, I crashed hard on the couch, full of mud and sweat. The sun had set a long time ago and I was exhausted.  

Mo wasn't far behind me. She came through the door and slammed it shut, just as exhausted as me. She went into the kitchen and I heard her banging pots around and making so much noise. I got up and followed her.  

"What are you doing?" I asked. 

"Making dinner. What are you doing?" There was a hint of annoyance in her voice when she spoke. 

"Watching you make dinner," I said. I followed her around the kitchen as she went back and forth from a skillet on the stove to the sink or cabinets.  

She didn't say anything after that but I could tell she didn't want me to go away.  

"Mo, look-" 

"No, mom, you look. I'm your family, you can't just go and say that I'm not your family yet because I am, I was, and I always will be your family! It's not something that happens once a week and then for the rest of your life pretend we don't exist. We're here and we exist. You're a part of this whether you want to be or not because it's an endless cycle." She seemed to sink into her body again after pouring out all her emotion in one breath. She looked me in the eye and held my gaze there. "Do you understand?" 

"I understand, Mo. I always understood. But you and Castael have this bond right now that I don't have yet and I can't ruin that for the future, whatever happens at this point... You just called me mom." I sat for a moment with my mouth hanging open. 

Mo stared at me for a moment before swallowing hard and putting some type of spice in the pan. "You could have it." 

I pretended I didn't hear it because she said it so quietly I imagined she never wanted me to. I moved to sit on the counter and watched her go back and forth, back and forth. She almost pretended I wasn't there except for the few times that she glanced up at me to check if I was really there.  

When dinner was ready, we sat awkwardly at the coffee table and ate the dinner. The T.V. was on and Mo acted distracted by the screen but I could tell that she was distracted inside her own mind. When she was finished, I took her plate and washed the dishes while she took a shower. I got bored watching the T.V. so I decided to put on my shoes and go for a walk. 

The walk wasn't comfortable because my legs felt like jello and with every step I took, my thighs seemed to become more and more sore. I made the rounds of the pathway when I saw Mo looking at me through our window. She raised a hand and I waved back and when I turned my head, she was next to me.  

I stepped back from her and gasped.  

"What? I'm an angel remember?" She had a funny smile on her face. It almost didn't fit her.  

"Right, that... grace stuff." I nodded. "And you're a half-angel, remember?" We continued walking. I would have imagined that we would have walked in silence but she seemed to want to talk about everything under the sun. Most of the things she was talking about were things I didn't even know about or wanted to really hear about. It didn't occur to me that something was off until we had made another round. 

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked her.  

"Yeah, of course! Why do you ask?" she asked. She seemed extremely peppy considering her calm and collected personality she usually possesses. I shook my head at her and glanced up at someone coming toward us. I did a double take and saw that it was Mo, storming toward us with a fierce expression on her face. 

"What the..." I looked at the Mo next to me and grabbed her wrist. Despite my soreness I was able to twist her arm and bring her to the ground. She screamed out in pain. I pulled at her arm with my foot in her ribs to cause more pain. I broke her wrist and dropped her arm making my way to the real Mo.