Brett
My phone continued to ring as I pulled into the hotel parking lot. Not even that annoying sound could wipe the smile off my face. I had finally told Becca that I was in love with her and I was currently floating on cloud nine.
I killed the engine and picked up my phone, curiosity getting the best of me. The screen lit up, displaying that I had five missed calls from my mom.
I knew I should answer, my mom never calls me unless it's an emergency. For once, I didn't care. Calling her back and inevitably listening to her speak about my father would kill the good mood I was in.
I just wanted to go inside, lay in bed and think about the girl I was in love with.
Love.
Damn, who would've fucking thought.
A smile returned to my face as I thought about Becca. I wanted to keep feeling this forever so I put my phone on silent and shoved it into my pocket, pretending that the missed calls from my mom didn't exist.
I walked inside the building that was beginning to feel like home. Everything about this lobby was becoming so familiar to me. Becca and I had shared so many memories here that the thought of leaving and returning home someday soon didn't appeal to me.
I had no memories at my house with Becca, but this place was full of them. It was as if I could feel her presence in the air or the weight of her hand in mine as we walked through this hallway so many times.
I turned the corner and I could even imagine her standing at the door to my room, waiting for me to -
What the hell?
I had been so lost in thought that I didn't even notice that there was someone standing at my door, a petite woman who I'd recognize anywhere.
"Mom?" I called, confused. What was she doing here? She knew I was at this hotel, but I never told her the room number.
She turned around quickly and I was struck by her appearance, I could see the heartbreak written all over her face. Even from down the hallway, I could see the pain radiating off her. Red eyes, messy hair sticking to her face, she was even wearing sweat pants. I didn't even know she owned sweat pants.
My mom didn't have to tell me why she was here, or why she had called my phone over and over. The answer was clear, because this was a sad routine in my life.
He left, once again. Breaking my mother's heart and expecting me to clean up the pieces. But how many times could you break someone's heart until it couldn't be broken anymore? Until it was damaged beyond repair?
I ran to my mother, as I always did. I hated seeing her like this, I hated that my father had the power to do this shit to her. She began to cry as soon as I wrapped her in my arms, holding her delicately to my chest as the sobs rocked her body.
"He's gone," she cried, her tone one of sadness and disbelief -- which is what killed me the most. That even after all this time, she was still surprised when he left her.
"It's alright, Mom. It's going to be alright." I kissed her forehead before pulling away to open the door to my room.
My mother's hand clutched around my arm,
holding onto me so strongly as if I were her anchor in all this mess. I guided her into my room, flicking on the light switches before leading her over to the couch -- the couch I had just sat on moments ago, when I told Becca that I was in love with her.
It never failed to amaze me how quickly a night could change.
"What happened?" I asked her gently once she was sitting on the couch beside me. I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around my mother, her body looking frighteningly small beneath it.
"He got a call from work," she managed to choke out between sobs, "he went straight to the airport..." I grabbed the tissue box off the coffee-table and handed it to my mom, knowing it would be one of many that she went through tonight.
As much as I resented my mother for taking my father back every time, for choosing him over me, I couldn't find it in my heart to abandon her. She needed me and even if it killed me, I would be there for her.
"You know he's not going away for work, Ma." She needed to know the truth, no matter how harsh it may be.
She turned her head and stared at me. Her eyes were red, the skin around them pouffy from all the tears she had cried. My mother reached up and rested her palm on my cheek, smiling sadly.
"I know that, love. I know."
"Leave him," I begged her for the hundredth time.
"I can't," was all she replied. Every single fucking time it was those same two words.
"Why, Mom? Why the hell not? Look at what he does to you!" I yelled louder than I intended, slamming my hand on my lap as I felt tears burn behind my own eyes.
"I love him, sweetie."
"That's not love, Mom. It's not." I told her confidently. I knew what love was and this sure as hell was not it.
Becca's face flashed in my mind and I missed her so fucking much that my need to see her was overpowering. That was love -- that feeling that arose in me every time I thought about her.
Suddenly, I found myself wishing that Becca was here right now. She would know what to say, the perfect words to comfort my mother, words that I never seemed capable of coming up with. But I didn't want Becca's first time meeting my mom to be like this, for her to meet a heartbroken, crying woman who couldn't even stand on her own two feet.
I wanted it to happen, but not like this.
"Mom," I said sternly, wanting her to look at me instead of averting her gaze from mine. "He doesn't love us, he stopped loving us years ago. You need to let him go, please. For me."
For a split second, I actually believed that she would -- that she would divorce my father and get him out of our lives for good. I believed that this would be the final time I had to watch my mother cry over this man that managed to ruin both of our lives. But that false second of belief passed as soon as I saw the look on my mother's face.
"He's made mistakes, sweetie, but he is still the man I fell in love with. I feel it every time he comes back. And one time, he will stay for good. I know it," she smiled at me with so much hope in her eyes that, for the first time in years, I began to cry.
I sat up abruptly, the urge to run away from this situation was overpowering but my feet remained planted on the ground. As always, I was unable to abandon my mom, even in times like this where it would be justified to do so.
I ignored what she just said to me. I knew that no matter how many times I told her the opposite, she would not believe me. She would remain loyal to a man that wasn't loyal to her.
"I'm going to take a shower," I said, turning my back on my mom and her misplaced hope.
I shut the door to the bedroom and threw myself against it, slamming my hand into the wood to let out the anger bubbling up in my chest.
Instinctively, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my phone to call Becca -- the one person who could make my world feel a little more right among all the wrong.
The screen was blurry in my hand, the tears obstructing my vision and making everything hazy. I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hand, Becca's face as my phone background coming into focus. It was a photo of her I took outside one day during lunch. She had spent the break reading her book-of-the-week while I sat there hopelessly, admiring every inch of her face. When I took out my phone to take a photo, she noticed immediately and held out her book to slap me with it right before I took the photo -- she was smiling in it, her mouth open as she called my name, hand outstretched with her book clutched in her fingers.
Staring at her image on my phone was enough to make my world stop spinning for a moment. She looked so happy, so full of life and laughter and love that I smiled amid the sadness in my heart. I always wanted her to be like that, happy.
As badly as I wanted to call her, I forced myself to turn my phone off, shoving it into a dresser drawer to stop it from distracting me. I didn't want Becca to see me like this, sad, broken and angry. The last time I let the anger win, I almost lost her for good. I wasn't going to let that happen again.
Sitting on my bed, the room radiated silence that was briefly interrupted through the sound of strangled sobs. I wasn't sure if it was myself or my mother -- each broken for different reasons that related back to the same man.
I suddenly felt sick, sick of letting my father control my emotions just like he did my mother's. I wasn't going to cry over him. I was stronger than that.
I had too many good things going on in my life right now to let the one negative bring me down. I wanted to shower, sleep then wake up and go to school to see my girlfriend. Maybe kiss the hell out of her if she'd let me but, knowing Becca, she wouldn't, especially not at school.
I was smiling just thinking about Becca. Her fierceness and her shyness; two extreme opposites that somehow moulded together to form the girl I loved with every inch of my heart.
I pried myself off the bed and fumbled into the washroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a mess, falling over my forehead in the way that drove me insane, yet I somehow grew to enjoy simply because Becca was always running her hands through it to brush it back. My eyes were red, a mirror image of my mother's. I knew that tomorrow morning I would wake up and they would be swollen, making people at school ask questions that I would have no answer to.
After all, no one at Eastwood knew about my family issues, not even Jeff, the guy I considered to be my best friend. The only person I had ever told was Becca, she was the only one that understood -- the only one worth sharing that part of my life with.
An hour later I was out of the shower, a towel around my waist as my eyes burned into the dresser drawer that my phone was in.
I opened it immediately, pulling out my phone and halfway through dialling Becca's number when I came to my senses. Cursing under my breath, I placed my phone back in the drawer and shut it.
What the hell was wrong with me? Becca was at her best friend's house right now. I had occupied so much of her time these past few weeks that I was becoming selfish, wanting to keep her all to myself. But we couldn't trap the ones we love, we couldn't hog them to ourselves no matter how much we wanted to. I would see her tomorrow and that would have to be enough.
It wasn't, never would be, but for now I would have to settle.
I stared at my bed and the closed door, my eyes shifting back and forth between the two. After throwing on sweat pants and a t shirt, I opened the door to my mother, still in the exact same spot on the couch that I left her in except her eyes were closed, she was sleeping soundly. She seemed peaceful, unaware of life's trouble in her current state. I didn't want to wake her up, but I didn't want her sleeping on the couch either.
Walking to the couch, I placed my arm around my mother's shoulder gently. "Mom?" She began to stir at my voice, her eyes opening a second later. "Come on," I lifted her off the couch carefully, supporting her body as I guided her into the bedroom.
When she was tucked into bed, I shut off the lamp and turned my back to her before her voice startled me. "I love you," she murmured before she drifted off to sleep once again.
"You too, Mom."
I shut the door slowly, careful not to make a sound, and then settled into the couch which would be my bed for the night.
Laying on my back, I propped my head up on my arm beneath my head and thought about how my family had turned into this. I couldn't find an answer, all I knew was that, someday, I would be a better father than the one I had. My children would never have to feel like I felt right now.
Thinking about children made me automatically think about Becca. Then, inevitably, thinking about Becca and I making children. Not that I didn't think about it one hundred times a day, but my mother was in the next damn room.
I needed to get a grip on my mind and go the fuck to sleep.
***
"Sweetie, wake up."
I mumbled something unintelligible, rubbing my hands over my closed eyes before looking up at my mom. She looked better than she had the night before, but her eyes were still red. I knew mine must have looked the same, probably worse considering I got no sleep last night.
"What is it, Ma?" I shielded my face with a pillow against the bright sunlight coming in through the open curtains.
My mother nodded to the door as soon as another knock sounded. She woke me up to answer the door? She couldn't have fucking answered it herself? Geez.
I reluctantly rose from the couch, yawning loudly as I walked towards the door to see who the hell decided to wake me up this morning. What time was it even, six in the morning?
I peeked through the hole in the door and smiled instantly, my heart coming alive in my chest. Becca was standing in the hallway, staring into the door defiantly with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked mad and for some fucked up reasons, I found it incredibly hot.
I felt a hand land on my shoulder and flinched instantly. I completely forgot my mother was here and watching me with a concerning look on her face. Dammit. I didn't want Becca to meet my mom, not like this.
"Mom, give me a minute." I gestured to the bedroom urgently and she nodded, walking away quietly while the blanket wrapped around her shoulders trailed behind her on the floor like a cape -- if only it could actually shield her from all this sadness.
I prayed to God my mother wouldn't come out of the bedroom and make an appearance then took a deep breath, opening the door a crack and sticking my head out.
"Becca! What are you doing here?" I tried to act normal, but my eyes frantically searched down the hallway, making sure no one else was with her. I could feel her gaze burning into my face, lingering on my eyes and their blatant redness.
"You weren't at school...you didn't answer my texts," she said sadly, her face falling at her own words. Just the fact that my girl was concerned about me enough to come all the way here made me feel like a billion bucks.
I wanted to kiss her so badly that I couldn't think straight.
From the corner of my eye I saw my mother walk into the kitchen, curious as to who the voice at the door belonged to. Becca craned her neck to the side, trying to peek into my room. I panicked and closed the door more, not wanting her to see that my mother was here.
"I was, I ugh," I glanced over my shoulder, distracted by my mother who was slowly moving closer to the door. I shot her a death glare, one that silently begged her to leave me alone right now.
"Who is in there, Brett?" Becca's voice pulled my attention back to her. She was mad, I could tell by her body language and the hard look in her eyes. "Brett?" She asked again when I didn't answer, her voice cracking on my name.
And then it hit me. Becca didn't know my mother was here. From her perspective, it looked as if there was someone else in my room --as if I had just been with someone else.
Dammit.
"Becca, it's not what it-" My voice cut off as my mother yelled from behind me. I cursed under my breath, closing the door even more as if to block out the sound that already escaped.
"Brett? Who's here?" My mother yelled.
I looked at Becca and my heart felt like it was breaking. I could see the tears forming behind her crystal clear eyes, her mouth shaking as she began to cry. Her angry demeanour was gone, she was shrinking back into herself as she always did.
"Becca, let me-" I couldn't explain, she was already running down the hall before I even got the first word out. I threw the door open and stumbled into the hallway after her.
"Becca!" I yelled, but she had already disappeared from my vision. "Dammit!" I slammed my fist into the wall, frustration taking over every part of me.
Every single damn time the two of us got close again, we get pulled apart and cast back to square one.
Quickly, I shut the door to the room and took off after Becca. I was in my pyjamas, hell I didn't even have shoes on, but it didn't matter. I refused to allow another miscommunication come between us.
Hell, I loved this damn girl with my entire heart. Cheating on Becca was something that never even crossed into my mind. Why would I cheat on her when she's the only person I want?
I ran after her, wherever the hell she was, and ignored the curious stares of the hotel staff.
I probably looked like I was crazy, but hell, I was staring to think maybe I was.
But if being crazy meant getting my girl back, then I was one crazy fucking dude.
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PLEASE MAKE ME SMILE BY TAPPING THE STAR AND VOTE <3
Ta Da! And you guys seriously thought I would make Brett cheat on Becca, he loves her, dammit! Come on, I thought y'all would have more faith in my boy. Not going to lie, some of the comments saying he cheated with Jade/Jenny broke my heart. But then again, you guys were exactly like Becca in that last chapter: only seeing half the side to a story and believing the information being laid out in front of you. So I guess I forgive you. ;)