As I Am

Chapter Sixteen

        Dedicated to the above because she is always so lovely and her comments bring such smiles to my face (:
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          Sixteen

          As much as I want to run inside the restaurant and cry to my dad about lying and meeting with somebody I told him I saw, I can’t. I don’t want to deal with Cade’s mother right now, or in fact, ever. I haven’t seen her since the funeral. She and her husband tried to contact me multiple times but I never answered the phone or the doors. She tried to visit me after what happened the night of the funeral, but I made sure everyone kept her and Cade’s father away. I don’t want them in my life anymore.

            Without a backwards glance I whip to the left, causing my hair to fly around me in the breeze. I start running, heading towards home even though it’s the last place I want to be. I pump my arms as hard as I can and push myself faster, wanting to get away as far as I can from my father and the woman he’s with.

            Eventually I end up at my home, unsure of whether or not to go inside. My face feels hot and when I touch my palm to my cheek, it comes off wet. At first I think it’s sweat but when I see how blurry my vision is, I realize I’m crying.

            Why do I keep crying all the time?

            “Bam?” Mom opens the door and looks at me with such shock and worry that I don’t have the power to brush past her into the house. “Bam, sweetie, what’s wrong?”

            She has an arm around me and is leading me into the cottage as sobs begin to rock me. I want to stop but they just keep coming, out of my control. It’s like I’m a bottle that’s starting to explode.

            Mom sits me on the back deck in one of the chairs and she takes another across from me. I lift my knees up to my chest and hug them tightly to my body. Deep breathes leave my mouth as I desperately try to calm myself down. I do not want to cry, but the tears are coming without any sign of stopping.

            “Where’s your father?” Mom asks. “What happened? Did he leave you again? Did you see Mr. Lee? Did he threaten you, Bam? I swear to God if he said something-“

            “Stop,” I choke out. Her mothering-ness is going into overdrive and I can’t handle it. I just want her to sit in front of me and not say anything. I don’t want to hear her speak at all. I want to sit in silence and nothing more, but with my mother, the opportunity never comes. If I don’t tell her why I’m upset – something unusual for me, hence why she’s so concerned – she’s going to call my father. And I don’t want to be here when she does. “Dad got a call on his cell phone,” I say. The words come out quietly in between breaths of the salty air. “He went into one of the stores so I was going to go to Hadley’s. When I passed the place he was in, he was with…He was with Cade’s mother.”

            Mom’s expression is so blank that it scares me. She doesn’t pale, doesn’t go wide-eyed, she just sits there without speaking.

            “It was her,” I repeat. “You have to believe me, Mom. It was her.”