Nine Days: Chapter 21

“I’ve been looking for love, all I’m finding is pain”—Shawn Mendes by Seth Bishop

Dear whoever reads this,

I’m not quite sure how to feel about today.

I’m excited, but I also fear what’s about to happen.

Colin is going to meet my mother. My mother will hate him. I’ve never admitted this before, never even thought I would have to eventually…but she hates me.

She truly hates me. It’s the last thing she told me a month ago when we fell out. But she hated me way before that already.

My mother always acts like she loves me so much around everyone, but when it’s just the two of us…she hates me.

She’s scaring me. She’s hurting me.

But Colin scares me more.

Ever since that one night we’ve spent together, when he made me feel like I could mean more to him (moments before he ruined it by leaving like I was just another woman on his list), I fear him.

He kisses me sometimes. And when he does, I feel like a toddler being excited for candy. I feel every single butterfly in my stomach explodes. Not even those silly butterflies can take it anymore.

You know, ever since I could comprehend words anyone said, my parents taught me a lot of things.

Like “stay away from cigarettes and pills. There’s a chance they’ll kill you.”

Or “never tag along with a stranger. They might kill you.”

Whatever it is, it’s always the same ending. It’s always ending with my death.

And that makes me wonder; why would anyone want to live when all there is in the end is death?

I mean, sure, we’re all destined to die eventually. But why put ourselves through the pain of life when it could all end so much earlier?

But then I think of Colin…

suddenly the pain doesn’t matter anymore. It’s still there, I feel it, but he makes it bearable.

And I’m scared he might succeed to convince me. (Although I don’t see that coming)

But my only reason to stay would be him.

Colin Carter would be the only reason for me to stay alive, and that’s such a stupid reason.

I’m not alive for anyone but myself. In the end, anyone can backstab you. Anyone can crawl underneath your skin and cause so much more pain than you’ve ever felt before. And I fear Colin would be one of those kinds of pain.

He’s not a bad person. But I’m sure he would leave me. And staying alive for someone that’s going to leave me doesn’t sound too appealing.

I will end up dead either way. Either before he has the chance to break my heart, or after he’s done it.

I choose to avoid the heartbreak.

Anyway, that’s not all I wanted to say today.

Although this day started off quite good, I just know it will take a drastic turn. And it frightens me.

I feel empty, yet I have to put on a smile so Colin—who’s sitting right next to me while I’m writing this—won’t ask about it…about me and my feelings.

I don’t feel like talking about my numbness. It’s truly unbearable.

I want to cry. But I know I can’t.

So I will have to put on my big girl pants and just pretend.

Like I do every day.

Lily

Before we arrive at my mother’s house, I need to finish writing the letter dedicated to her.

I’m not sure I have much to tell her.

I love my mother. She’s been great to me. The best even. At least until she wasn’t anymore.

I could never forgive her for tearing our family apart.

She knows I blame her for it. I’ve given her plenty speeches about how much I hate her for bringing nothing but misery into my life.

I have only ever told her that when I was mad at her for something else. Like…when I wanted to go out and she wouldn’t allow it. I’ve always had the same excuse.

“You’re a horrible mother. You tore my family, my life apart and now you won’t even let me go out with my friends.”

She hated it. I know she did. I know it was wrong of me to do that, it was wrong of me to continue to throw it against her head even after years. But I was mad. I am mad.

Yet I still have one chance to apologize to her for it.

In form of a letter.

I can’t face her and tell her any of it, I know she wouldn’t even let me finish my sentences.

I even doubt she will read the letter. My mother doesn’t care about me anymore. Not one bit. And I’m only visiting her because I will be dead next Friday. No matter how this meeting will turn out, I need to see her one last time.

I love her. I do. Which makes it really difficult for me to let her go. To say goodbye to her. I know she won’t be too sad about my death; not even sure she will care at all.

So I write her a letter, stating how sorry I am. How awful I feel for holding a grudge when all she wanted was to be loved just as much as my father was…by Liz. Apologizing for being the brat she always said I was. Apologizing for not being good enough.

My parents both cheated on one another. They’ve never been in love, regardless of being married. Their marriage was nothing but platonic and only used for finance profits.

And probably because they had two children together.

By the time I finish writing the letter to my mother, Colin and I arrive at her house. Now the only letter left is Aaron’s.

“I bet she will hate me.” I notice Colin’s hands shaking, so I take them in mine, kissing his knuckles.

We haven’t made whatever we are official, and we aren’t going to. But the both of us know that there is more to us than just friendship. Friends with benefits, perhaps? That’s what it is, right? Friends that fuck and kiss occasionally? We haven’t even had that talk.

“She will love you,” I assure him, but Colin doesn’t seem too convinced. Neither am I.

“Did you ever take a look at me?” I sure have. “Every mother on this planet tells their daughters to stay away from me.”

I chuckle. He sure has a point. Colin doesn’t look like he has any good intentions with anyone. And before I knew him just that tiny bit better, even I thought he was a bad guy.

Not like in a sexy way. Well, he sure is handsome. But I mean, a genuinely bad person.

I hate myself for falling into the trap filled with stereotypes whenever someone has a couple more tattoos. And I know my mother will judge him for those, probably won’t even give him a chance to prove that he’s a great guy.

“We’ll just be staying an hour. I can’t be around her for too long anyway,” I tell him as we approach the front door. We stop and Colin’s eyes are on mine almost instantly.

I wish I could describe the way he looks at me. It’s sweet and I feel the respect he has for me portrayed through his eyes. But there is something else to it. Something I can’t name. Words are failing me.

“Why is that?”

I sigh, debating whether or not he should know the cold and naked truth. “She’s not really fond of me.” It’s not like he won’t witness her hatred in less than two minutes.

Colin studies me, studies my words like he is trying to find one bit of false information in them. But he can’t, my mother truly doesn’t like me.

“Colin, she’s the only person I had. She was a great mother to me. But she wasn’t always nice to me. I wasn’t nice to her either. We’ve had our difficulties, a lot of arguments and hatred. She was relieved when I moved away for college.”

Technically, I could’ve stayed home for college. I could have taken the bus or my mother’s car to get to class every day as our house isn’t too far away from campus. But I wanted out.

He blinks. Once. Twice. Never saying a word. He just looks at me and blinks like he’s waiting for me to continue. Like he is expecting me to say that it’s all better now. But it’s not.

“She is slobby. I’ve been handling the household most of the time. I cleaned after her. I was more of a mother to her than she was to me. Not right from the start. It started when I was around fifteen,” I explain. Colin remains silent. “I said a lot of hurtful things to her back then. So she started to dislike me, I guess. She would have never said it to my face, but I could feel the disconnection.”

“Alright,” he says, almost whispers.

Moments later we’re seated at the kitchen table. My mother smoking her cigarette while looking at Colin like she’s never seen another human before. She eyes him with disgust.

I knew I would be wrong about my mother liking Colin. She doesn’t even like me, so how is she supposed to like him?

I feel Colin stiffen, especially now that our fingers are interlocked. He doesn’t speak one word. All he does is look at me then back at my mother.

My mother didn’t even bother wishing me a happy birthday when we came inside, nor does she make any attempts to do so now.

I could swear she was about to…until the second she noticed Colin next to me; my mother turned into a brick—emotionless and cold.

“So that’s your boyfriend?” my mother speaks with revulsion.

“Yes.” No.

“I see.” She blows smoke out in my direction, knowing very well that I hate when she does that.

I don’t care about her smoking. It’s her own body, she can do whatever the hell she wants. But that doesn’t give her the right to force me to passively smoke along with her.

At least Colin seems to feel just as disgusted by the smoke. He tries not to let it show though. I, on the other hand, I’m coughing, waving my hands around in order to free, not only my sight, but also to clear the air I’m inhaling from smoke.

“And you’re an athlete?”

“I am,” Colin answers, offering my mother an awkward smile. I bet he wishes he’d never come.

Now that Colin met my mother, I’m sure he will tell Aaron that it’s not worth getting to know her. It’ll make it easier on my part because then I won’t have to talk too much about our mother in his letter.

“Like Aaron then,” my mother says. I almost choke on the air while Colin gasps.

She has never even mentioned Aaron’s name in sixteen years. Never said it once. Whenever I tried to speak about him, my mother would push the topic away and tell me to stop thinking about him.

So how the hell does she know Aaron is an athlete? And why would she connect Colin to Aaron?

Colin looks at me, eyes filled with fear. He has no idea what to say, and neither do I. I have so many questions, yet I don’t know where to start asking.

“I know you will be together tonight.” Now it’s my time to stiffen up. “Celebrating your big birthday together.”

“Mom’—I need answers—“how would you know that?”

“Don’t be silly, Lily,” she chuckles. “You’ve been seeing him for way too long. I know you have. Why do you think did I start disliking you?”

“Because I was misbehaving?” Damned if her openly admitting to disliking me doesn’t sting in my heart. I mean, she has before…a month ago, but I thought that was the heat of the moment and it just slipped out.

“You were,” she agrees. “Your father knew what he signed you up for when he kept in touch with you. We had very little rules, and here he was breaking every single one of them.”

I’m not sure if my mom mentions all this now to scare Colin off, or if she’s just fed up with me. Either way, I’m kind of glad she finally says it out loud, meaning it. Hating me, I mean. It will make leaving this fucked up life a ton easier.

“You’re so much like him,” she says, smiling. It’s a devilish smile. If Colin wouldn’t be here with me, I’m sure I would be running out of the door right now. “And your brother, he’s just as arrogant as I imagined he would be. With his rich father, the rich stuck-up stepmother. You’re both little shits.”

I want to cry. I want to rip my heart out right at this moment, tear every organ out of my body until I pass on to another dimension.

My mother has officially ruined my birthday for me.

“With all due respect, Mrs. Reyes, Lily is amazing. She’s a really great person. And so is your son by the way. Maybe you should try finding flaws in yourself and not the children you’ve abandoned.” I only roughly pay attention to Colin. I’m more focused on suppressing my tears. I won’t cry in front of my mother. I won’t.

“I didn’t abandon Lily. I am a great mother. I have always been good to her. I let her live here for many years.”

“That doesn’t make you a great mother. In fact, it makes you an even worse one. You had no intentions keeping Lily close to you, so I would assume by the way you’re speaking about her. The best thing you could have done was to give her away to her father. To someone that would have made sure she’d be happy.”

Colin stands up from his chair, lifting me up to my feet as well. He tightens the grip around my hand as he looks at me. His other hand places down onto my cheek, wiping underneath my eye. A tear must have spilled over. Dammit.

“Lily is suffering from what you’ve caused over her. She is handling so many things, stuff you would know of if you only paid a little more attention to your own daughter. And yet here you are, telling her that you dislike her. On her birthday.”

“It’s not my fault she can’t care for herself.”

Words could never express what it’s like to admire the woman that gave birth to you, and she treats you like a waste of space.

She hasn’t always been like that, maybe that’s why I’m still holding onto her. Even now.

“I gave her everything and she threw it away for a guy that cheated on me.”

“It’s not like you didn’t cheat on dad!” Dear God, please stop these tears from wanting to spill over. I can’t do this today.

“Your father is a piece of shit. Just like you and your brother!’ She slams her hands onto the kitchen table.

Colin and I haven’t even been here for fifteen minutes and she’s already about to break the next window. I can sense it.

It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that she’d break one. I know if this doesn’t stop soon, she will throw something at the kitchen window until it breaks. And for what? So she can run after me with a few broken glass pieces and threaten to kill me with it.

Colin takes a deep breath as he pulls me out of the kitchen, forcing me to leave this house along with him.

I’m glad he decides we’re leaving. I don’t want to be here for another minute.

“You shouldn’t have been born, Lily!” My mother shouts right before the front door slams close. I can still hear her scream and throw things around, breaking furniture, even through the closed door.

She doesn’t come outside. She doesn’t want to make this right. She won’t apologize, I know she won’t. I also know that this is the last thing my mother will have said to me before I died.

You shouldn’t have been born, Lily.

How much hatred does a mother need to have inside of her to scream this at her child? How much pain does she have to be in, in order to make her daughter feel this miserable?

A lot, I assume.

She’s not feeling any better than I do, I know that for sure. Only a broken soul can react this way. I don’t blame her for wanting to hurt me. She’s trying to deal with her own problems. She’s trying to deal with her own pain.

Doesn’t mean it wounds me any less.

But now that the door is closed and it’s just Colin and I left, I let the tears slip free. I allow myself to break, allow my tears to run down my cheeks, allow my pain to take over my body.

No matter how shitty my mother treats me, I will never stop craving her love. I will never stop wanting her to be in my life. She is my mother. I know that sometimes relatives can cause you more harm than anyone, but I still love her. She hurts me like no one ever could, and I still love her with all that I have.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” I say quietly, tugging onto Colin’s shirt. He doesn’t answer. All he does is wrap his arms around my body, pulling me close to him.

He doesn’t care when my tears wet his shirt. He doesn’t care when some of my mascara stains it, or when I start to cry so much, I can barely breathe.

He just stands there with me, hugging me so tightly that I almost feel okay. Almost like my mother didn’t just tell me that she wishes I was dead.

But she did say that. And he heard it. And he now knows where I get these thoughts from.

“Lilybug.” His voice is a whisper, filled with concern and sympathy. I can hear how sorry he is for me. But I don’t want him to feel sorry for me. I don’t want his pity.

“Can you just drive me home?”

“Can I take you somewhere else first?” Colin pulls away from the hug, looking at me.

His hands remain on my body. He’s holding me by my waist, gently moving his thumbs over my body, looking so deeply into my eyes, I could melt. I would melt…if I didn’t believe there was almost to nothing left of me.

“I’m tired, Colin. I don’t want any more adventures today.”

He nods, but then lifts his shoulders as he shrugs at me. “It will be good for you, I promise.” I don’t get to answer because Colin lifts me up from the floor and carries me over to his car, sitting me inside like I’m unable to do that myself.

My eyes follow him as he jogs over to the driver’s side and slips into the car, starting the engine faster than I could blink. And just like that, we’re back on the road, leaving my mother behind like nothing happened.

Fifteen minutes later, Colin stops in front of an older looking building. It doesn’t have any signs, no indications that anyone lives there, but it doesn’t look like an abandoned house either.

We get out of the car, his hand taking mine the second we’re back next to one another. I like his hand in mine, or mine in his. It’s a simple gesture, yet it offers more intimacy than I would have ever thought.

The longer Colin is holding onto my hand, the more it starts to burn. Not that I feel any physical pain, but it burns in my heart. It burns like a lit torch is being held right underneath me. The flame isn’t hitting my skin, but the hot air still touches me.

Or maybe his touch appears more like the color yellow to me. A color so warm and powerful. It’s the heat you feel when you rub your palms together. This kind of warmth floods through my veins when our hands link together. It’s as joyful as seeing the little drop of water on top of grass, so simple yet so beautiful.

And that’s what I feel in my heart when Colin is with me. It’s what I feel when his hand is holding mine. Happiness. Warmth. He makes me feel, banishing my numbness for a short while.