Give Me Love (Muke)

You're In My Veins and I Cannot Get You Out

“What?” she says, sounding stunned. “Already? But we just started talking.”

Michael’s gut twists. “I’m just tired.”

“Don’t go yet, Michael. Please.”

“Mum--”

“Is this what I get after raising you for 18 years?” she asks plaintively.

“Mum! Stop it!” Michael isn’t supposed to react. But he can’t take her guilt-tripping him like this. Not tonight. “Can’t you just leave me alone tonight?”

“Why are you always trying to get rid of me? I need you, Michael. Why don’t you need me?”

“I’m 18,” Michael says, pleading. “I’m not trying to get rid of you.”

“Then what are you trying to do?”

“I’m trying to go to sleep, Mum, why can’t you understand?”

Don’t lose it, not at Mum, don’t.

“Because it feels like you don’t care anymore. Why else did you leave?”

And here they go again. Looks like tonight isn’t Michael’s lucky night, either. “I left because I had to. Let it go, Mum. Didn’t you say Maddie’s being great?”

“But you just couldn’t stay, could you, couldn’t stay to help your poor mother out. Just like you and your stupid generation, all full of little traitors like you.”

“Hey!” Michael says, sitting bolt upright. “I’m not a traitor!”

“Do you prefer quitter? Leaving when things get hard?”

“When have I ever quit when things get hard? You’re the one who moved us halfway across the country when Dad left! I don’t quit!” Michael shouldn’t be fighting back, it’s so not right to take things out on her.

“I did what I thought was best. For both of us. And after all I’ve done--for you--for us, you get up and leave first chance you get. I should have known you’d turn out just like your dad.”

“What?” Michael says, helplessly. “I’m not like Dad!”

“Oh yeah? He ran out on me, too. He ran out on us. And after all that, you still leave. You said you’d stay with me forever. We were supposed to be a team.”

“I was nine.” And I didn’t understand that you weren’t all there. “I’m nothing like Dad. I swear.” Michael bites the inside of his cheek so hard his eyes start to sting. Or maybe the two aren’t even related.

“You certainly seem just like him. You’re exactly like him, you make people think you’re such a good kid, so sweet and reliable, and then you leave just like that. You make people trust you and then you break their trust. And you don’t even care.”

That’s way too close to home. “Well, whose brilliant idea was it to marry him?"

“Don’t you do that to me, Michael Gordon Clifford! Don’t you dare say that!”

Michael doesn’t know when she started crying. He doesn’t know when he did, either. “I am nothing like Dad,” he swears, harsh and choked. “I’ll prove it. I’ll never be like him.”

“That’s what he said, too. He said he’d never leave me. But in the end, you’re all just the same.”

“Listen to me,” Michael practically yells, standing up. “I’m not going to end up like him! I still exist! I didn’t leave you. And I will fucking prove to you that I’m not like that. I’m not a failure. I will show you.”