Friday evening

My mom knocks on my door before walking in my room. “Got a second?” she asks but I’m unable to fully pay attention to her.

“I’m in the middle of a game, can it wait?” I respond after the teamfight in my League game finishes. We end up winning a pivotal objective with me and Felix being the only one left alive on our team.

“I can.”

Felix asks who it is through my headset and leaves it alone after I answer.

Mom’s eyes are staring at me after taking a seat on my bed. She never had interest in getting to know about my hobbies. She never disapproved of them either. Mom left me alone to discover what I enjoyed. This is the first time she’s stayed around to watch me play a video game.

She was never strict or short tempered. She’s too kind and thoughtful for her own good. Taking in Sara was already a huge task and risk. Mom barely made enough money as a nurse to keep the house. She was forced to get into debt after taking in Andew.

I say goodbye to Felix and end my discord call with him. I swivel my chair around to face my mom, “What’s up?”

“I haven’t had the chance to ask you how you were doing. I know it hasn’t been the easiest thing to digest. Do you want to talk about it?”

My mom likes to see the best in people. That’s her weakness. I understood why she chose to take in Sara, but I never understood her choice in Andrew. It was a senseless decision and could have ruined our lives. When I asked her why she did, she only said that she saw a boy desperately crying for help and that was enough of a reason.

She can see through people, just like I can.

She’s better at it.

“It’s fine, Mom. You know you never have to worry about me.”

“I know,” my mom sighs. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. About you, about Sara, and especially about Andrew. It was a mistake to risk so much. And now you’re forced to take a year off college because I can’t afford it.”

Mom sees through people. She sees when they need help. She sees when they’re hiding. But her biggest flaw is that she can only see the best in me. Mom is unable to see anything less from her daughter.

She doesn’t see me.

“I’m not having this talk again,” I roll my eyes. “It’s fine, I said I wanted to take the year off so Sara can go instead, remember?”

“It’s not fine. You’ve been pulling away from me and I can’t help to think it’s my fault. Something’s been bothering you for a while now. What happened, Grace?”

“Has it been that obvious?” I snort. “No, it’s nothing I can’t handle.”

My mother sighs in disappointment, “Nothing is obvious with you, Grace. Are you sure you’ll be alright?”

“Yeah,” I nod.

My mother stands up and smiles, or at least I think she does. It’s hard to tell when she does. My eyes gravitate to the square piece of paper with something written on it. I didn’t notice she had it in her hands.

“I also have been thinking about your father.”

She hands it over.

“What’s this?” I ask, flipping it over. It’s a photo of my dad and me when I was a baby. He’s holding me in his arms with his mouth wide open either laughing or smiling. His construction clothes are filthy and the dirt is leaving its mark on the white blanket I’m wrapped around in.

I have never seen this photo of him.

I flip it again and it says:

The day we met was the day I gave my life to yours. I will always be with you. I love you, eternally. Now and always. You’re my Grace to the world.

“I know you don’t like to talk about him,” Mom sits back down on my bed. “I know how hard it’s been for you.”

“Why are you giving me this now?”

“You deserve to know how much he loved you. I know you don’t resent him for dying. You have all the right to. I’m sorry that you had to struggle growing up because he wasn’t around. I was scared that I couldn’t fill both roles, but look at you now.”

“I didn’t get pregnant when I was 17, so I have you beat.”

“I just wish your father was around.”

“Mom, you did just fine. Now I feel like I should be the one checking in on you. Why are you bringing all of this up?”

“I don’t know. After what Andrew told us, it’s been making me doubt myself, if I made all the right choices.” she crosses her arms. “I can’t shake this feeling I have, like something bad is going to happen. Like I did something wrong or not enough.”

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“More than enough,” I almost stand. My knees are locked in place. “It’s not your fault for what Andrew did before us. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know,” she chuckles and pauses.

I get the feeling that she wants to say something else, but there’s a knot in her throat. She’s unable to look me in the eyes and has been staring at the corner. Like she wants to say something that she’s been keeping from me. She wants to say it. It’s eating at her that she’s keeping it from me.

“I have other crowns to bear.”

What does she mean by that?

“Do you think I think you’re a bad mom?”

“Sometimes. I’m your mother and I barely know a thing about you anymore. You don’t come to me or talk to me whenever you’re having a problem. You always have to deal with it yourself when you shouldn’t have to. Even now, you won’t tell me what’s bothering you.”

“You’re far from a bad mom. Just look at how you helped Sara. Look at Andrew. Nobody else could do what you’ve done. If I had a problem I couldn’t deal with, I would come to you. I just don’t want you to worry about every little stupid problem of mine.”

My mother laughs and somehow manages to do it without smiling, “When I got pregnant with you, I thought my world had ended. I thought your father wasn’t going to stick around. My mom and dad certainly weren’t going to help. I didn’t know what to do.”

Everything I learned about my father was involuntary. The house we live in now used to belong to his parents. It was given to us after they died. Before we moved to Darkwood, we lived in a trailer park in Northern California. It was hell. Moving was the best thing to ever happen to me.

“We would have nothing if your dad didn’t stick around. He worked so hard for us. He’s the reason why I even became a nurse. He encouraged me. He could handle everything.”

“Was there anything he couldn’t handle?” I ask.

“He placed everything on his shoulders so I didn’t. He could only carry so much before it caught up to him. I don’t care how stupid, I want to know about your dumb little problems, Gracie.”

“Thanks,” I smile, finally able to stand. “I’ll keep that in mind, but I’m fine right now, blessed mother.”

Mom was absent, but she wasn’t unloving. I never lacked her hugs, her warmth, her kindness. I never blamed her for the things she could never give me. I always understood.

But she is right, I don’t talk to her as much as I should. As I grow older, it’s becoming less. Besides my birthday, the last time we did anything together was last december. It was her birthday and we went to eat at a Korean BBQ place.

I need to do a better job and hide whenever I have a blank expression. It’s a mirror of what my mom always has. I don’t want her to worry about me. I came too far to be that weak again. I already feel like shit that she’s acting like this.

Somber takes away her youthful face.

Mom smiles widely, which I don’t see often.

She always has a resting bitch face that makes her approachable even though she’s the sweetest. I’m lucky enough to not inherit that feature. But because she always looked annoyed or tired, I was careful to not make her worse. I was slightly afraid of her and she only looked like this because of me.

That she couldn’t smile more because I took her entire future away by giving birth to me. I took away all of her dreams and everything she wanted to do. She gave up everything for me after my dad died.

I was a burden.

That she hated me because of it.

That. I. Wasn’t. Enough.

That’s never been the case.

She hugs me and I’m proven I’m wrong and she never felt that way about me. My mom has always loved me. There’s a lot of things I would have liked to do together. One of those things was crying in her arms. Not that I never did, but I stopped when I learned she couldn’t fix everything for me.

Right now, I want to cry.

I want to break down and fall to my knees. I want her to tell me that everything will be okay. I want her to tell me that it’s okay to cry. I want to be a little girl again in the comfort of her mommy’s arms.

But I don’t.

I let her go.

Mom tickles my cheek with the back of her hand then flips it to squeeze it. “Oh, my baby girl. How did I end up with such a wonderful person such as you?”

“I’m my mother’s daughter. Of course I’ll turn just like her,” I laugh.

Wonderful? That’s the joke. I’m anything but. Would she feel differently if she knew what I keep from her? She’s not stupid. She knows what goes on in our town and how ugly it can turn people. She trusts me too much and believes that I don’t lie to her. How could I ever come clean that I like to do MDMA, that I do cocaine, that I sneak out all the time, that I’m no different than anyone else? How do I tell her that I’m hiding enough money that’ll change our lives? How do I tell her that I keep so many secrets from her?

That I’m not her baby girl.

That I’m far from wonderful.

That I’m ugly.

I flipped my whole life around. It hasn’t been enough. That’s all this was. How can I tell her that I’ve gotten nowhere? How do I tell her that despite how hard I tried, I still see that ugly 14 year old Grace? How do I tell her that I only needed her and didn’t care about anything else?

How do I tell her that I feel the most empty around her?

How can I make her see me?

To be seen. It’s a tender look, the warmth I feel from her eyes laying upon me. Everything and everyone stops to see what I’ve become. Will the stars do the same? Did the universe craft me to be the most perfect child? Because I wish it did. The world has stopped just to look at me but there’s only been a set of eyes that I cared about. It’s the only thing I could ever ask for. Now it’s too late. How amazing would it be if she could just look at me?

What they don’t tell you about growing up as a very lonely girl is that you grow up and a part of you still remains a very lonely little girl.

Mom leaves and I stare at the photo of my dad. I have his same gigantic smile. I don’t even get to see it anymore. He looks so loving. I used to think I was the spitting image of my mom. Right now, we look nothing alike. I look so much like my father. I was right to never want to get to know how he was like. I’m positive I would have loved him.

Because right now, I wish it was him who raised me.

Why couldn’t it have been my mom who died instead?

Fuck.

Where did that morbid thought come from? Why would I ever think that? How could I?

I’m not a cloud. I’m not the wind. I’m not the rain. I’m a fraud. I have never been anything but an insecure girl desperate to be looked at. I’ll never not be. Nobody will ever love me the way I want them too. I’m not worthy of it.

I’m exhausted from carrying my thoughts. I’m terrified that I’ll never be able to leave them.

I’m no stranger to being alone in my bedroom. It’s filthy but there’s nothing to clean. It’s mine but it never felt more foreign. I’m not comfortable here anymore. I lay in my bed and I’m tired. I’m rotting. The last bit of the sun disappears from my curtains and my room becomes completely black and shapeless. There was never any shape to begin with. I took all the life away. At least I can’t see how pathetic I look right now. There’s only me and my bed now. The sheets aren’t warm. They freeze my skin. I can only endure and clutch them to my chest and whimper like a wounded dog.