Ripped [TO BE PUBLISHED 2016]

17

I sit on the couch, flipping through channels. It's a Friday night but I don't have anybody to hang out with, and I don't want to do my homework. The front door slams shut, and my mom comes in wearing a thin jacket and a thinner expression. She's carrying a bag of Chinese takeout in one hand and a solid black purse in the other.

"I brought you some take out," she says, putting it on the table behind me. I shudder. I don't like anybody standing behind me. Especially her. She sits at the other end of the couch, the light from the TV illuminating her face.

"Thanks," I say warily. I don't move to get it. She doesn't usually do things for me unless she wants something.

She isn't a bad mother, exactly. She has a short temper, and she hasn't really talked to me in three years, but it isn't that she's bad. It's the fact that she isn't ever really here.

"Can we talk?" she asks quietly, her voice almost a whisper.

I don't say anything, just nod.

"Are...are you okay?" she asks. I jerk back like she's punched me in the face. Which, she practically has.

"What do you mean?" I ask defensively.

"I just. I got a notice from your school that you were skipping classes, and I went online to check your grades. You have a D in art? Aspen, what happened? You love art."

I loved art. Past tense.

"Why do you care?" I want to hit her. I've never wanted to hit anybody before, but in this moment I want to hit her. Part of me knows that I'm being irrational. That she's just trying to reconnect with me, or check on me, or whatever. But she has been absent from the role of "mother" for a long time now.

"What do you mean, why do I care? I just...I wanted to make sure..."

"I'm fine, mother." The word "mother" sounds foreign on my lips. I haven't had a mother for a long time, really.

She gives a defeated sigh and leans back into the couch. No yelling. No arguments. No reminiscing about the past that had shattered beneath both of us. I wasn't going to be the one to ruin that. I grab the bag of take out and a fork and retreat into my room.