Because You're Different ✔

46. Spoiled

One time, Nathan called me when I'd been cooking pasta for my dad and promptly held a whole drunken conversation with him. Dad was chortling every other sentence. "Seems like he's fitting in, huh?" he said afterward, and suddenly, it wasn't all that hilarious anymore.

The one person who didn't think it was funny at all, was my mom. Our relationship hadn't improved after Nathan had left; on the contrary, most of the time when I was with her, she'd zone out, staring into nothing at all. I was getting worried about her. She was letting herself go; there were days she wouldn't shower or comb her hair, and sometimes she'd serve dad microwave food. He never complained, nor would he ever confide in me, but by the number of cigarette butts I found on the porch each week, I could tell he was concerned about her as well.

I was making an effort to reconnect with her. She was my mom. Yeah, she wasn't the easiest woman to be around, and we had both hurt each other — that didn't mean it always had to be like this, right? I'd gotten older. I'd realized adults weren't invincible; I was reminded of it every day, with dad coughing and shuffling around the house. She was just a person. I was too. We'd both made our mistakes. But I loved her, and when you loved someone, mistakes could be forgiven.

So, that was why I was here now, doing the dishes, mom drying them absentmindedly. She was slow, barely finishing one fork per minute, and she was far away again. Large circles hooded her eyes; her hair was dull, pulled up in a messy bun that only accentuated the grey replacing the black. She didn't look like a forty-two-year-old woman anymore. More like fifteen years on top of that.

I was in a brooding mood, and her deafening silence only made it worse. A few hours ago, Charlotte had added a picture of her and Nathan to her Instagram, sickeningly perfect, her laughing hard but beautiful, him looking at her with this slight, sweet smile, wearing these fancy clothes like they were planning to attend a wedding. Why did they look this good together? The comments had made me sick to the stomach, all saying something along the lines of perfect couple and when is that ring coming and I had almost hurled my laptop at the wall. "Are you okay, June?" Malik had asked hesitantly, throwing a glance at the screen. "Something not working out?"

Yes. Something was definitely not working out. For me, at least.

I couldn't get the picture out of my head. My heart hadn't hurt this much since the day he left. It was like someone was slowly scratching lines in it with broken pieces of glass Christmas ornaments; even the green ring on my finger couldn't comfort me. Didn't know it was possible to hate someone you hadn't talked to in four months with such intensity it made you want to get on a plane and strangle them with your bare hands. And yes, never say you hate someone, unless it's the absolute truth. Sometimes, I wished I had kissed him, right in front of her, at the airport, not because he might've stayed then, but because it would've caused a whole lot of drama and it would've messed with her mind.

With a sigh, I reached out for a couple of knives lying on the bottom of the sink. My brain screwed up, and my hand shot back without me wanting to, causing a wave of water to splash over the edge, crashing down on the floor, the knives falling to my feet, clattering loudly. Fuck. Part of my shirt and pants were drenched, making it look I'd pissed myself. Great.

I bent down to pick the cutlery up, but they were slippery, and I couldn't get a grip on them. I felt mom's eyes on me; it made the task even more difficult.

"Oh, just let me do it!" She swatted my hand aside, plucking the forks from the ground with ease, dumping them back in the sink. Her movements were abrupt and noisy and made me startle. "Looks like you can't even do the dishes anymore..."

My face heated and I clenched my fists — that wasn't fair. This had always happened, and it would always continue to happen. Where was the woman who would laugh and tell me to get a towel, joking that it wasn't bathing time yet? Sure, she was having a rough time, though that didn't justify her getting angry over something I had no control over. Why did she have to make me feel incompetent?