Loving You Differently

Thirty Eight

Aria Adkins

After Austin leaves I trek back inside, sighing as I'm greeted by a dead silent dimly lit living room. My eyes graze over the duffel bag that Mom left lying on the middle of the sofa. Mentally bracing myself, I begin the reluctant walk to her room.

I knock on the door gently before pushing it open. My lips purse when I see her stuffing clothes from her dresser drawers into a trash bag. A lit cigarette hangs from her mouth, smoke flittering into the air.

"Going somewhere?" I ask, careful to keep my tone neutral.

"Rehab," She quips, leaning over the bed and flicking ashes into the glass ashtray that sits on the rumpled sheets.

I raise a brow, stunned. A part of me doesn't believe her. "What made you want to do that?"

She ties off the trash bag in her hand and snaps open a new one, all without making eye contact. "They got an assisted living program that I can stay in if I finish my sixty days."

If.

"How are you gonna pay for it?" I question.

Finally, Mom looks at me. "Your sugar daddy set me up at a facility up in Nashville. How nice of him," She states flatly.

I straighten up, confused. "My-? Are you talking about Austin?"

Mom rolls her eyes and ties up another trash bag. Repeats the process, this time scooping random change and pill bottles into it. "You got another one that I don't know about?"

"Austin is my boyfriend," I state calmly. "Who apparently paid out of pocket to help you get clean. So yeah, How nice of him."

I rub my temples with my finger soothingly, my mind racing. After all the drama.. Austin paid and arranged for my mom to go to rehab. My heart clenches at the thought of all the debt that I feel owed to him.

"And you're actually gonna go?" I question. "No arguing or throwing a tantrum?"

"I don't give a shit anymore, Aria," She says flatly, slamming the drawer closed. "There's nothing here for me anymore."

For a brief moment, I think about how this is the first coherent, sober sentence she's said to me in months. Then I place the patronizing, bored tone in her voice as the one she's used when speaking to me for my entire life. Almost as if I'm an inanimate object instead of her daughter.

"What about your kids?" I say pointedly. "Did you forget that the one right down the hall is about to graduate high school?"

"She doesn't need me there. She has you," She says distractedly.

Anger rushes up my spine and I grit my teeth, instinctively reeling in the emotions that I've never let her see.

Kind of the same way she does with me.

And then I remember that she's supposedly leaving. Up and leaving us in the rear view like Dad did. And then I think about healing, the talks I've shared with both Savannah and Austin when it comes to forgiving a parent who isn't even sorry.

I look at the woman who birthed me and feel.. sad. But not for me.

"I feel sorry for you," I say quietly.