Casting Bones

Chapter 8 - Part 2

No, because he didn't fucking do anything. But with his lame excuses, for all they knew he might as well be their prime suspect.

"She seems to think you had something to do with it." His mother said it like it was just an observation, but there was something else hidden in her words. Something only Desi would pick up, from a life's worth of passive aggressive comments and backhanded criticisms. Something that confirmed she thought he had something to do with it too.

He returned his own tone back to her, stopping his packing to really hammer in his point. "She would think that. She hates me almost as much as you do." The worst part was, he didn't even blame them. If it was any other situation he'd assume it was the jilted ex-boyfriend too. But the fact that his own mother was so quick to doubt her son made Desi's short fuse burn even shorter. Shouldn't she be defending him? If anyone was on his side, shouldn't it be his mother?

"I don't hate you..." When the words came out less than convincing, she took the hint and shut up until Desi resumed packing. Once the tension deflated a little, she added, "every time I see you these days, you look more and more like your father."

An innocent enough comment if it had come from anyone else. From her though, it was a reminder; of the blood Desi came from and the shadow he could never seem to outrun. Desi stopped packing again to look her in the eye.

"I'm not dad." He was sick of the comparisons. He was her son. He got walked out on also. Why was he always the one paying for the sins of the father he barely remembered?

She clearly tried to consider his words, to remember that it wasn't Desi who'd screamed and intimidated her, hit her, threatened to kill her in violent rages that left her a flinching, flighty woman still. She couldn't shake her bais though, especially in the face of her abusers spitting-image son. "Did you put your hands on that girl, Desidario?"

Desi had to fist his fingers to keep them from shaking in the rage of his unsurprising disappointment. Instead he zipped up his bag and snatched it off his bed, turning to face her at the threshold of his door. "What difference does it make? You're not going to believe me either way. You just want something to justify how shitty you've treated me my whole fucking life. You just want a reason to be able to say that you knew I'd turn out just like him."

She didn't answer. Instead she just stared up at him, in a similar fashion as to how he imagined his father saw her on most occasions. Small and fragile and pathetic. Desi remembered a time when he was still a child, shorter than her, and the idea of her scolding him felt like the scariest thing in the world. He towered over her now and it was hard to remember why he'd ever been scared to disappoint such a disappointment.

The veil of childhood lifted some time ago, when he realized that his mother was just another fuck up like everyone else, terrified of everything that moved and bitter of the man her sweet autumn child reminded her of. Desi knew at that moment that he'd end up being exactly what she expected of him if he didn't get himself out of her house full of self-made demons.

When she didn't respond to his outburst, Desi let his anger and anxiety get the best of him again, allowing himself to add a particularly cruel thought to his previous words, one that only his mother could garner from him. "Sometimes I wonder if Dad wouldn't have done me a goddamn favor finishing you off."

His words received an instant response: the crack of her palm across his cheek. He'd deserved it, but that truth didn't numb the hot sting left behind on his skin.

When Desi finally opened his eyes to look at her again, his mother's expression was tormented with shock and regret, but also fear. "Desi, I'm— I'm so sorry I—." With her apology she stepped away from him though, conditioned to be terrified of the retaliation, and Desi had to used every last bit of his barely existent willpower not to prove her trauma response right. Instead, he pushed past her when she surrendered the doorway, escaping the stifling house before he could say or do anything more stupid.

He couldn't even leave the driveway. His eyes were already flooded with frustrated tears by the time he got his hands on the steering wheel. He'd fought with his mother more times than he could count but it had never been this bad. He'd never been so cruel before. She'd never hit him before. What the fuck happened that weekend, that turned everything to shit so quickly?

Ashley happened. Ashley going and screwing his best friend and then disappearing and putting Desi on trial happened. And even with his angry bitterness at how fucked up she'd made everything, he couldn't help but wish she'd just pick up the fucking phone when he dialed her number because he wanted to talk to her more than anyone in the world at that moment. He couldn't help the ache in his chest that kept him from being able to inhale when the line rang and rang and range until her voicemail answered yet again. Or the tears leaking down to his lips as he leaned forward against the steer wheel and begged on a whisper into the speaker, "please Ash. Please... don't be dead. I'm so sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

After ending the call, Desi finally found enough air to settle his spinning head, and put his car into drive to leave. He paused only briefly to consider an old station wagon parked across the street that he didn't recognize.

When he turned onto the street to leave, the station wagon followed.