Torn

Chapter 6 - What Do Those Words Really Mean?

Chapter 6
What Do Those Words Really Mean?

On instinct, my nerve endings shifted from the sensational buzz to the fiery feeling.

Flynn flipped around so quick I almost didn't catch it with my eyes, and he was immediately next to me and against the wall. My breathing hadn't slowed, and I noticed his didn't either. His chest was heaving underneath his red hoodie and the look on his face was indescribable.

My eyes shifted, unwillingly, to the person who opened the door. When they landed on the wretched person, I lost all of my bearings. I felt like I was in another world, in a fantasy only I could have made up in my own mind. Flynn didn't matter in that moment, and my problems didn't seem to even be specks in my thoughts.

My mom finally came for me.

“I found her! Jackass,” she muttered the last part, shaking her head.

Her dark brown curls had gotten more tamed, running in tendrils down her back. She had bangs now that were pushed back with a few bobby pins and a braid, and she was dressed in a peach collared shirt and dress pants. Her makeup was done lightly, and she seemed almost...free...of anything.

Ever since leaving my father and I, she must have cleaned up her life and gotten rid of the messes she was too tired to deal with. Everything about her screamed care-free and I almost envied the smile on her face. She seemed so elated, excited and purely happy. What I would give to be in her place, have that feeling of being so free and void of worry. As much as I wished she would come back for me, she was off living her life without a care in the world, and I was stuck in this hell hole of a place that I feared everyday.

It just wasn't fair.

“Well do you want to get out of that closet and give your mom a hug?” she asked, smiling with her now, bright white teeth. Her arms were spread out wide, waiting for me to just throw myself into them.

Like so many other things in my life, it would have been easy to just fling myself at her opened arms, curl myself into that warmth I'd dreamed about for years as a kid. But I couldn't will myself to do it. All of those years that she left me in the care of “Jack,” living in fear whenever I came home from school. I knew he wouldn't let her talk to me over the phone, but she could have come for me, she could have saved me from that place.

When she finally realized that I wasn't about to throw myself into her awaiting arms, she frowned. “Um, would you like to give my daughter and I a minute?” she asked, looking over at Flynn.

I looked to him with pleading eyes, for the first time since I had known him. If he left, I would only be left to talk. Talking wasn't an option. “Sure,” he said quietly, completely ignoring me as he walked out of the closet, past my mother, and out my bedroom door. After all of that pushing, all of that urging, he just simply left me when I didn't want him to the most.

I swallowed audibly as I took her in again. I couldn't believe that she was standing there, in my bedroom with me. It was everything I wished for as a little girl, with my Barbie suitcase at my feet and my heart full of hope that she would return. Just like whatever happened in that closet with Flynn just moments before, it all just seemed too unreal.

“Sweetie,” she coaxed, taking in what I figured was my confused and emotional look on my face. It was all too much, the fear, the pleasure, and the wishes granted all bubbling at the surface. I didn't know how to handle it all.  

She guided me to my bed with an arm around my shoulders, and shut the closet door behind her. I sat stiffly, my back straight while I watched her sit herself next to me. She smelled of apples and cinnamon, and a hint of some type of perfume I couldn't place. It was nothing like I remembered her smelling of before, and the nostalgia just wasn't there. It was almost like I was wishing for it to be there, so I could escape my world for a few moments, and look back to the time when it was all okay, when she was there to save me.