Chapter 37 #2
I’m fidgety. My palms are damp, and no matter how many times I wipe them on my jeans, it doesn’t help.
I close my eyes and let out a slow breath, trying to ground myself, but the train feels like it’s crawling, each minute stretching longer than the last. The music playing through my hearing aids—the playlist that usually helps—feels like background noise, unable to drown out the churning in my chest.
I look out the window, watching the blur of passing fields, and force myself to think of something, anything, that might soothe the storm in my stomach.
So I think of Alex.
I think of the way he held me last night, after he’d left my legs trembling and my throat hoarse from moaning his name. The way he always wraps himself around me like I’m something fragile. Something his body was made to protect.
He’d frowned when I told him I needed to go back to my apartment today, his displeasure clear, but he’d softened the second I promised to return tomorrow. That quiet acceptance, that trust, it does something to me.
But the tightness comes back quickly. Because in two days, I’ll be back at his family’s mansion—this time, with his father and grandfather there. That thought alone makes my fingers clench in my lap.
Alex has told me a lot about his grandfather.
How much he respects him, how close they are.
Apparently, the man arrived from Russia a few days ago for their annual family gathering that will be happening this weekend.
The kind of gathering where every relative shows up in tailored suits and old money whispers through the halls like perfume.
I’m not even attending that event, but still, his grandfather asked to meet me. He invited me, through Alex, for dinner at the mansion.
And somehow, that feels even more terrifying than whatever it is my mother wants to talk about right now.
Because no matter how far I’ve come, how deeply I’ve fallen for Alex, or how much he makes me feel safe… there’s still a part of me that feels like I don’t belong in his world.
The train slows to a stop, snapping me out of my thoughts. I blink, the weight in my chest still there, heavy and coiled, but I draw in a steady breath, stand, and step off onto the platform, already tired of the almost two-hour train ride.
The air out here smells different. More like dust and dry leaves. Faintly metallic, like rust. I keep my head down and begin the ten-minute walk from the station to the trailer park.
And as I approach the driveway to my mother’s trailer, I catch sight of a figure to the left, in the narrow yard of another trailer a few spots away. She’s hanging up clothes—one hand holding a faded t-shirt, the other reaching for a clothespin—and when she turns around, I freeze a little.
Tyler’s mom.
Her eyes widen as they land on me. I don’t think I’ve seen her in years. She looks older now, more worn down, but her face lights up in surprise.
“Oh my God, Lucas,” she says, voice breathy, the cloth forgotten in her hand.
I give her a small, awkward wave. My smile doesn’t quite reach my eyes. It feels strange seeing her again. Tyler had cut ties with her completely after we moved out of this town.
“You look so good,” she says, already stepping toward me like she might pull me into a hug.
But before she can get any closer, the door to my mother’s trailer creaks open and then swings hard. She barrels down the metal steps, then grabs my wrist, making my body jolt by the suddenness of it and also because I don’t remember when she last touched me.
“Don’t talk to that stupid woman,” she snaps under her breath, her voice low but sharp like glass. Her grip tightens as she yanks me towards the door.
I glance back briefly, catching the flicker of something in Tyler’s mom’s face—surprise? Hurt? I don’t know. Maybe both.
“Oh, fuck off, Kathryn,” I hear Tyler’s mother snap, her raw voice sharp and full of bite.
My mother doesn’t respond. She just keeps tugging me inside like nothing was said, like this moment wasn’t already suffocating. The trailer door slams shut behind us, and I flinch at the familiar sound.
Inside, the air is warm and strangely still. I let out a shaky breath, barely aware that I’d been holding it. Then I glance down at her hand, still wrapped around my wrist.
My jaw tightens.
I yank my wrist away forcefully, making her fingers slip from me, and I see it—just for a split second—that flicker of hurt in her eyes.
I pretend not to care. I raise my chin, giving her the cold and unflinching look I’ve mastered over the years.
The same one I used to give her when I was fifteen and too tired to cry anymore.
I sign, sharp and deliberate, “Why am I here?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, her shoulders soften, and she gestures toward the couch with a quiet, “Can you at least sit?”
I glance over—and pause.
The couch. It’s… clean.
For as long as I can remember, that couch was always covered in junk.
Beer cans, cigarette butts, stained blankets, wrappers, overflowing ashtrays.
But now? There’s a yellow cloth draped neatly over the cushions, and two matching throw pillows rest on either side like someone cared enough to place them there intentionally.
I blink, then slowly let my gaze wander.
The floor isn’t sticky.
The sink isn’t filled with crusted dishes.
There’s no smell of smoke in the air, no trace of stale beer clinging to the walls. The counters are wiped. The clutter is gone. Even the old blinds look like someone tried to clean them; everywhere is spotless.
And it hits me. Not just the surprise, but the confusion. The ache.
Because I used to beg for this.
I used to clean this place with my hands back when I was younger and still lived with her.
I’d try to make the house smell like lemons with some cheap cleaner I bought with the money I make from doing Assignments for my classmates.
I’d organize the trash, take out the beer cans, straighten the pillows, but it never lasted.
Nothing I did was enough. She and her boyfriend never let it last.
I force myself toward the couch, my legs heavy, like each step is dragging the past behind me.
I sit slowly—carefully, if I move too fast, I might shatter.
The air feels thick. Pressed. My chest tightens as I sink into the cushion, already overwhelmed just by being here. Defeated in a way I didn’t expect.
She sits too, but keeps a distance. Thank God.
“I need to tell you something,” she says finally, her voice small. There’s something fragile beneath it, like she’s afraid of startling me. Or maybe herself, “I don’t know how you’re going to take it.”
“Just tell me.” I sign fast, sharper than I mean to, frustration biting at my fingertips. “Please. Just spit it out already. For Christ’s sake.”
She looks at me for a long second. Her eyes a little wet. Then she breathes in, long and deep, and everything in me coils.
“Tim is dead.”
The words leave her mouth too quietly. Like she’s testing them out. Like she’s unsure they’re even real.
“He had a complication while in the coma. He… he didn’t make it.”
I don’t react.
Not really.
At least not on the outside.
But inside?
Inside, something cracks open. Loud and violent.
My ears begin to ring. That high-pitched noise I get sometimes when my hearing aids glitch. Only this isn’t them. This is me. My body. My mind is shutting everything out. Protecting me, the only way it knows how.
She’s still talking, but her voice goes muffled, like it’s underwater. I can’t make out the words. I don’t want to. Because if I hear any more of it, I might throw up. Or scream.
And just like that, it hits me, after two weeks of trying to bury the memories in my poor brain that has been through enough, it hits me.
Walmart.
Nate’s face.
His voice.
His accusation.
“You ruined our lives. Tim has been in a coma for the past five years because of you.”
My stomach coils so tight it hurts.
It’s happening again.
The sick weight I’ve worked so hard to bury for years.
“Lucas,” I hear my mother say, clearer this time. Her voice firmer, closer. “Lucas. Breathe, my boy. Come on. Just breathe.”
I blink. She’s beside me now. I don’t even remember her moving.
Her hands reach for mine, tentative. She folds my fingers into hers, gently, like she knows I could pull away any second. But I don’t. Not because I want the comfort, not because I forgive her or even trust her. But because I have no fight left. Not in this moment.
“Don’t blame yourself for anything,” she says softly, her voice barely steady. Her eyes are red-rimmed, swollen from crying. “You might think it’s your fault, but it’s…”
I blink at her slowly, and something sharp twists in my chest. My brows pull together before I can stop them, heat rising under my skin, and suddenly I’m filled with anger.
“And why would I think that?”
The words leave my mouth before I can even think to stop them.
Her eyes go wide with shock, but I don’t stop. I yank my hands out of hers, jaw clenched tight.
“Why does it have to be my fault?”
“Lucas,” she breathes out, voice cracking. “Oh my God. Did you just talk? Did you just use your voice?”
She’s full-on sobbing now, hands trembling as she lifts them like she wants to cup my face. But I pull back immediately, fast and hard, and stand from the couch.
“Don’t you fucking touch me,” I sign harshly, anger spilling out in full force, knowing my voice won’t come out again—not now, not with her. “I am not and I will not blame myself for your ex-boyfriend’s son’s death.”
Her face falls apart. Completely crumbles.
“Lucas, stop this—”
“Oh, piss off,” I sign, slow and deliberate, making sure she sees every letter of it. “You, that dead boy, and his friends ruined my life.”
“No,” she cries, shaking her head between heavy sobs. “Lucas, please, just—”
“No.” My hands slice the air. “I’ve done enough listening.”