It’s like a weight lifted off my chest. One I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying. I thought when I stopped worrying about every phone call I got, thinking this might be it, I’d lost her, that the weight was gone.
I never realized how deep it went.
And sitting here, airing all of it out, while she just sits and listens, taking in every word, I feel relieved.
I don’t know what this means for our future, but I know one thing—
I can finally let go.
fifty-three
Zeke
Avalon’s words have been engraved in my brain since she said them.
Your mom would be ashamed of you.
I don’t know what right she thinks she has to tell me what my mom would think about how I’m coping, but it’s not her place. She knew my mom for all of five seconds and wants to believe she understands what I’m going through?
I’m not her mom; regardless of what she thinks, I’m not a problem that needs fixing. I have a couple drinks to cope with my mom dying, and suddenly, everyone thinks I have a problem.
There’s a knock on my door, and I roll my eyes. Everyone’s always checking on me. I can’t go an hour without someone at my door to see if Ineed anything.
My mom.
That’s what I need.
“Go away, Declan!” I yell. “I’m not hungry.”
My bedroom door opens anyway, and it’s the last person I want to see.
“I’m not one of your friends,” My dad says, “so you can’t just push me outlike them.”
“You’ve had no problem staying out of my life for the last five years, so why are you suddenly interested in it now.”
He walks in and sits on my bed, “That’s not fair, Zeke. I haven’t been absent from your life; your whole life just revolved around being in that hospital—”
“Being with my mom,” I argue. “Who wasdying, but I’m sorry if my spending time with her was an inconvenience to your life.”
“That’s not what I’m saying.” He shakes his head. “Just because I wasn’t with your mom at the hospital doesn’t mean I wasn’t there for her.”
“You sure as hell weren’t there for her the day they rushed her to the emergency room. If Marjorie wasn’t working that day, I never would’ve gotten to say goodbye.”
“I was working.”
“You weren’t supposed to be,” I counter. “You were supposed to be home with mom. You were supposed to be off, but yet again, you pushed her aside to go drown yourself in your work.”
“You mean like how you’re drowning yourself in booze?”
“You have no right,” I whisper. “You don’t understand what—”
“You’re right,” he cuts me off. “I don’t know how hard this all has been on you. I should’ve stepped up and done better. I never should’ve let you take her to all those appointments or get so wrapped up in being there for every check-up, but we can’t go back in time and fix all of that.”
“Yeah, we can’t go back in time. She’s gone. Nothing you say or do can change that; you should just leave.”
“I talked to your mom every day,” he begins. “Every single day, we video chatted so I could see her because regardless of what you think about me, she was the love of my life.”
“Then why weren’t youthere?!”