Fight Like a Girl | ✔️

25)

"Your car?"

"Yeah."

Mom works part time at the nursing home, dad paid the mortgage and left her the house after the divorce and child support contributed to her income, she often tells me how despite dad leaving, she feels blessed that she can keep this roof over our heads.

"Don't you need it for work?"

"I can bus," she says.

"Coen and I can walk."

She's quiet for a moment, I don't look behind me but I can hear her fidgeting. "You two should have a safe mode of transport to school. It's not a big deal. I want you to take the car."

"Fine, thanks."

"Um, Luce," she touches my elbow and I turn around. "Can I check your thighs please."

There's no reason to be annoyed, so I lift my pants and hear the audible gasp pass her lips, she steps back as if someone hit her in the stomach. "Luce," she breathes.

This is the first time she's seen the damage, her pain is gut wrenching, tears well in her eyes.

"No fresh ones," I say, covering up again. "Stop it, mom. I'm fine."

It's clear she doesn't agree when she looks up at me, her chin quivering. "Look at what he did to you," she slaps a hand across her mouth when a sob escapes and I clench a fist, nails digging into my palm.

"I told you, I didn't want to talk about him all the time."

"We have to talk about it some time," she says and I walk out of the room, barely hearing the light footsteps following me because I'm so preoccupied with the volume of my frustration.

"Lucy, I know you want space but this isn't something to let lay dormant. You need to talk to someone, a therapist, there has to be a step forward of some sort or it's going to fester and get so much worse."

"I'll talk to someone when I want to," I say, going upstairs, I can barely see two feet in front of me. "It's not going to be you. Stop crying and coddling me. It's suffocating."

"Lucy," she blubbers, it grates me but it hurts too. It's conflicting, two warring emotions, neither of them I want to feel. "Please, I'm sorry if I'm not handling this right, I just want to help and it's so awful, it hurts to think about what he did—"

I spin around in the second-floor corridor and we collide. "Oh, it hurts?" I shout. "Imagine how I feel! Imagine how I fucking feel, mom. I don't need to hear about your hurt. What I need you to do is give me about five feet of space and stop giving me those stupid sad faces because I couldn't care less about how you feel."

"That's not what I meant," mom wipes at her face and then reaches for me, I pull back. "I know it's not about me, I just want to make it better and it kills me that I can't, but I can't ignore it either, I can't pretend my daughter isn't going through this pain, what kind of parent would that make me?"

"One that listens. You don't listen. You just think you know what's best all the time. I feel fine until you start looking at me like I'm broken."

"I'm sorry, Lucy. You're not a mother though, you don't realise how hard it is to know your child is suffering."

"Yeah," I say, stepping closer. "But you are not listening to me. I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to walk around in my own home, worried my mom is going to remind me of the worst thing that ever happened to me. Get it? I'll see a therapist, but I'm fine. I'm healing. Or I was. You're back peddling everything. So just shut the fuck up."

"Don't speak to me like that, Lucy," mom palms her cheeks and inhales a shaken breath. "I'll do my best not to make you feel coddled, but just know I care, please know that I'm here. For whatever you want."