Oh My Virginia

||seven||

I didn't want to answer this question. She had indirectly hurt me a lot, but she was the one who stayed and took care of me. She was the one person who had constantly cared for me although we weren't even really closely bonded.

When I felt completely alone in this world, there was something that was tugging at my heartstrings, pulling, reminding, begging for me to notice it. To notice that there was one reason that I wasn't alone.

And that reason was my mother.

I let out a long breath before saying, "I have always blamed you for him leaving. I think that he left because of your job."

I absolutely and indefinitely loved her, but I just couldn't help myself but to blame her for all the misfortunes that took place in my life. I was too selfish to see past the fact that my mother had nothing to do with the misfortunes, instead, it was me who kept overthinking things, always finding a reason to hate my mother more, wanting her to hate me because I felt like I didn't deserve to be loved.

I'm not even sure what made me have those thoughts, I think it's because almost all the love I had in my life had been sucked out of it while my mother was there. The selfish part of me took over, wondering what it would have been like if my mother was different.

Would I have lived the same, bitter life just as fate has planned out for me? Or would I be smiling right now, my heart being filled up with content and joy?

There was always the possibility of the latter, and that possibility was what fueled me, urged me to keep blaming my mother for the crappy life that I lead.

"What?" My mother breathed, hurt evident in her eyes and disbelief laced the tone of her voice. "You're blaming me? Me? You think he left because of my job? You think that I had chased him away with my ways? Virginia, I-" She paused, shutting her eyes for a brief second, before opening her eyes.

Oh, how I wished I hadn't seen the emotion that was currently swirling through her beautiful green eyes.

That raw emotion that I had seen was completely and utterly distorting her face. Her face had morphed into something that I had never seen her do, something I never thought my mother felt.

Pure, raw sadness.

My mother was sad. My mother is sad.

Not just right now, in this current situation. She had been sad since I was born.

She had been sad since her parents disowned her.

She had been sad since the day she dropped out of school.

She had been sad since the day she got a job as a stripper to support me.

And now, seventeen years later, she's still sad. Even, sadder now, because the daughter she had been sad for for the past seventeen years had never even once noticed how alone, sad, and depressed she was.

"Virginia, he didn't leave us because of my job. He left us because he wanted his."

• • •

I waited for Troye, sitting in his bedroom, staring at his collection of books. I subconsciously walked my way over to the wooden shelf situated next to his door, running the tip of my index finger through the rough material that was the spine of the book.

This is my first time being in Troye's bedroom, and probably my last.

When I came here, his mother ushered me into his room, saying that there were soon going to be guests over, and I should stay in the room with Troye.