The Void Between Hearts ~~ongoing~~

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   "So why didn't you tell me the crisis continued?" she asks.

   "I'm telling you now." I reply. As the words leave my mouth, I realise it was a trap question, and I just fell.

   She straightens up in her chair. "Don't use that tone with me Bomate. You act like you don't know how fragile you are!" she drops her spoon in the bowl. A loud crinkle follows it. She squeezes her eyes and takes a breath. "We could go in the afternoon."

   "Can you please not worry about this?"

   "I can't!" she flings her hands in the air and stands up, the kaftan follows behind her like a cape, my face falls into my palm.

   Wrong move.

   "Worrying is what I do, and now I have to worry more because obviously, you aren't even taking your own life seriously."

   "I'm sorry."

   "Stop being sorry! I get that it's my fault, you wouldn't have to go through this if it weren't for me and. . ." 

   I roll my eyes. Urgh. Just kill me already.

   I hate this part that tries to emotionally blackmail me, and these days, it's happening so frequently that she seems to be getting used to it.

   "Mom, it's okay. Please, you don't have to cry."

   "No, it's not okay, let me cry for you so you can see the kind of pain you're putting me through." She sniffs and I can't help but detest how pathetic those words were. 

   "I get that it's hard," she says. "You get to pass through the crisis, the trauma, everything, but you're never alone. If you could understand that and maybe," she sniffs and swallows. "Try a little, just a little to be less selfish with your choices, I don't see how bad that could be! Your stupid choices, getting rid of your drugs and now hiding symptoms, affect me!" 

   I hate it when she cries because of me. 

   "And eat! Your immune system is not going to build itself!"

   Silence fills up the space between us. I'm sitting and staring into the bowl, while she's moving in sobbing-sniffing-sighing cycles, between the sitting room and the sitting room/dining room.

   A couple more minutes of the silence, she walks to me and begins stroking my hair.

   "I'm sorry baby." She pulls the top of my puff out of reflex. "It's just that I'm so scared that something could happen to you."

   "How are the plans going with Tee?" I change the subject. 

   She inspects me. "Are you seriously asking that or you're just trying to change the subject?" 

   I see a smile at the corner of her lips. I like how she doesn't wear make-up in the morning.

   "I'm asking seriously," I say. 

   She sits back down and clears her throat.

   "I wanted to talk with you about it, but you were doing your stuff."

   "Mom, what stuff?" I ask. 

   Every time I want to know things or ask her why she didn't tell me things; she'll say I was doing my stuff. I'm seventeen with virtually nothing to do except go to a miserable school and take way too many exams. 

   What stuff could I possibly be doing?

   "Your teenage-daughter, I-just-want-be-alone thing," she says it out of the corner of her lips with a slight pout.