It's Just That Crazy

Chapter 8- No Offense

As soon as I get back to the apartment I text Brent about Sabine inviting me over. I leave out the part about us reminiscing over our once friendship. I figure that part is better left explained when the time comes. It will take too many texts to explain over the phone.

Brent: Haha! I was about to cancel. Are you going?

Me: Should I?

Brent: I’ll go if you will. Chad means well but…it’s still too soon to hang out like we used to.

Me: So that’s a yes?

Brent: Yes. You’ll make it less….awkward.

I laugh.

Me: Okay. I guess I’ll see you then.

Brent: (:

 

I find my mom in the same place I left her before, unpack her bags. When I ask her if I can go visit a girl next door that I go to school with she all but pushes me out the door.

“I think it’s great you have a friend that lives here. You should go have fun.”

“What about you? You don’t mind? You just got back.” I ask unsure.

She waves me off. “You’re not moving in over there are you? I still have you for the next three days.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” I start to walk out of her bedroom, but instead stop in her door. “I love you, Mom.”

She goes back to cleaning up the clothes strewn across her bed. “I love you too, honey. Have a good dinner.”

Tomorrow I’ll tell her about Dad. If he won’t talk to her, then I will. She should know and for me to carry around a secret this big feels like betrayal. I have to do it.

At six forty-five I head over to Sabine’s complex with a bottle of bubbling grape juice. Mom gave it to me since I’m obviously too young for wine.

I knock on her door and after a few beats she answers with an pink polka dotted apron and a big smile. “You came!”

 She looks like a model straight out of a cooking magazine with her dark brown hair and dark skin wearing a perfect toothed gin and three inch heels. It isn’t fair. She’s too pretty.

She holds the door open for me and the second I step inside it’s like stepping through a mirror to my mom’s apartment. It’s almost exactly the same except everything is reversed. The living room is a little smaller than ours, and it has white carpet instead of tan.

“Wow, your place almost looks like mine. How many bedrooms does it have?” She shuts the door and I hand her the bottle of juice. “That’s from my mom.”

She laughs. “Thanks. I’m sure we’ll enjoy it.” I follow her into the kitchen and she sits down the bottle on the counter before checking the food in the oven. “It’s two bedrooms. My parents were looking for a one bedroom, but this was the only apartment in my uncle’s complex.”