BEAU (original version)| ✓

18

• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN •
»—————«

"Do you know what time it is?"

A sigh flutters out of my cracked lips and my hand pauses halfway to opening my bedroom door. Mom stands not too far away, her familiar presence now smoldering, setting me ablaze with the heat of my shame.

"I don't know, mom." I hang my head low just so I won't be tempted to gaze into her eyes and face the abrasions masking her youthful face. "Ten? Eleven?"

"Three in the morning," she reproaches herself, the tenor of her speech splintering among our strong breathing. "Explain yourself, Beau. Why're you home so late?"

Somehow, I think telling mom about the heroin might lift the unmanageable weight off my chest. She would understand all these feelings better than me, and sure, she'll scold and scream, but this is the same tightrope we're walking on. And this struggle is no different for either of us. The same way she sought comfort in the panic is the same way I sought sanity in rapture. I found my Eliot in the river of bliss feeding my veins, and I don't think I want to go back home.

"I'm tired," I breathe slower. "We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Turn around, Beau."

"Mom – "

"Turn around," she hiccups on her own words. As I move to look my mother in her glistening eyes, nothing will be enough to wipe the grief from her expression. It silences me, grappling with my thoughts. "Look at what you did to your hair," mom laments. "Why'd you do it, baby? You...don't look like..."

Eliot. I'm changing myself and I'm changing her Eliot. It hurts her more that the pieces of him are slowly diminishing rather than questioning what I've really been up to.

She walks then stops in front of me, a head shorter, and the warmth of a mother's touch seals the disconnect. "Tell me where you went."

"I was out with a friend." It's the truth. Not the full truth, but truth enough. "I lost track of time, mom. That's it. Stop worrying about me and worry about yourself. See," I press my index finger gently against a brash purple marking on her cheekbone. "You've got to make sure you cover that up. People are going to start asking questions you don't want to answer."

"The same way you're avoiding my questions?" she fires back and swats my hand away. "I know I'm a fucked-up excuse of a mother, Beau. But that doesn't mean I can't care, and that doesn't mean you don't listen when I tell you something. Stop coming home like this. Stop ruining yourself."

Scrubbing her palms over her face in an attempt to stay composed, she then supports her weight with the wall and lets her eyes wander in the dark. If there's a way for me to just disappear, to never disappoint my mother again, to become one with the dusk, I would do anything to leave it all behind.

"I said I'm fine," I confirm, not sure I believe myself. "It's a one-time thing. It won't happen again."

"Don't become like me, Beau."

Everything she spews is an arrow to the heart. Glancing at her frail form, I'm determined not to break, but something cracks the longer I uphold this barrier to keep out my demons. I'm not so sure how long I can remain aloft.

"Don't look for the right things in the wrong places."

"I won't," I heave a sigh. "It'll be okay. We'll all be okay."

Mom rubs her arm and starts walking back towards her bedroom door, like a drifting shadow. "Tell that to your brother," her crystalline eyes fall to me for a moment, "he needs to hear it more than I do."