CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT Mike
“Michael? Honey? What’s wrong?” Mom asked after I barged through the front door, slamming it hard and cursing like she’d never heard before.
Mom was sitting in the middle of the living room while a hypnotic, calm voice was urging her to relax and center her stress into a circle that she could push away from her mind. Fuck that!
I stormed past her, blinded by fury as I tried to wrap my mind around what had just happened on the curb.
“Michael!” she called, raising her voice and most likely expanding her stress circle. “I asked you a question.”
I was halfway up the stairs seeking another door to slam. “I’m fine!” I yelled. I got to the top of the staircase and stopped, turned around and added, “And I’m not accepting company or calls.” Mature for sure.
I decided not to slam the door, instead choosing to pathetically pace back and forth in my bedroom, stopping every other lap to peer over my desk and out my bedroom window at Cooper’s house.
“I’m so fucked,” I grumbled. “So goddamned fucking fucked.”
I headed toward the door, wanting to scream at the person who had caused my problem. “Oh, yeah, she said,” I muttered. “Go drink this stupid potion. Find him in another universe. Be fucking seventeen again. Fucking bullshit,” I hissed before slapping the closet door.
“Michael?” It was my mother’s voice outside my bedroom door. “Honey? Bad day?” she asked, her voice slightly muffled by the wooden door. “Can I do anything?”
“You’ve done quite enough, Mom, so thanks a whole hell of a lot,” I stated, forgetting I wasn’t twenty-seven in this world and was speaking to a mother who had zero idea what the fuck was going on.
“That is quite enough from you, young man. Do not take your anger or disappointment, or whatever this behavior is, out on me.”
“Arrgghhh!” I yelled, squeezing the sides of my head and wanting to smack something. I was normally a calm individual so this outburst caught even me by surprise. Was I acting calm? Not exactly. Did I have a good reason to be pissed off? Possibly.
Then it hit me. I was stuck here. I was a soon-to-be thirty year old man who was stuck in the past and had no plan for what came next.
Mom hadn’t thought through my journey to the unknown.
I’d kept a promise that was ridiculous at best. I was so royally screwed they should crown me king of the idiots.
“Dammit,” I hissed.
“Enough of the language, Michael.”
“Come in if you want,” I said, opening the door in a huff and then heading for my desk to sit down. After pushing two books to the floor, I laid my head on my folded arms on the top of my desk.
“Take a breath, Michael,” she suggested, coming up behind me and rubbing the back of my neck. “Carrying on like this will not solve whatever it is that has you so upset.”
I inhaled deeply. “I know, Mom,” I agreed, forcing myself to remember I was her teenaged son, not the man she’d presented this fucking idea to over a week ago. Not only was that woman not available to take a call, she was dead. I had the option to love and respect the one behind me.
“Wanna talk?” she asked.
“Not really,” I said, resting my chin on my hands and looking out the window toward Cooper’s bedroom. “I had a tough day. I’m being stupid, is all.”
“Well, that’s certainly not true, son. You carry a 4.0, work part-time, cheer me up when I’m down. I’d say you’re an intelligent person.”
I moved a hand to my shoulder, offering her to take it. “You’re supposed to say that, but thanks, Mom. I guess I’m feeling lost or something.”
“Lost is certainly an unusual word choice, honey,” she said. “Is this about college? Work? Dad? Are you and Jennifer having a disagreement?”
I understood that my mother wasn’t the biggest fan of my girlfriend in this universe or the other, but she would always support me. “Do you like her, Mom?”
“Jennifer?”
“Yeah. Do you like her? Do you think she’s a good person?” I asked.
Mom walked to the other side of the room, fussing with her hair and most likely putting on her mom face so she wouldn’t reveal her true feelings. I didn’t know any of this to be true of course, I based it on future knowledge which wasn’t fair to her.
I stood up, straddling the chair like a horse and leaning over the back so I could face her. Once again using my arms as a cushion for my chin. “Forget I asked. Never mind.”
Mom leaned against the wall and was quiet. After a minute or so she asked, “How do you feel about her, Michael? I think that’s the more important question.”
I spoke too quickly. “Indifferent,” I acknowledged.
Her eyebrows raised in surprise. “I see someone has been reading up on interesting emotional descriptors. Lost? Indifferent? Those are a couple of unusual choices for you to use.”
“I guess I don’t care if she is or isn’t my girlfriend,” I admitted. “She didn’t really do anything wrong,” I added, which truthfully she hadn’t in this universe. “I just can’t imagine a life with her; not like long term or anything.”
“You’re seventeen, son,” she reminded me. “I’d hope you couldn’t at this age, but that doesn’t mean the two of you can’t grow and mature, finding a mutually loving place as you grow together.”
“You always stick up for her,” I said, picking at a small scab on my arm that I was noticing for the first time. “Always so nice too.”
Mom tapped on her head and laughed. “Let’s just say your old mother is smart. Just in case you marry her.”
I wanted to say not a fucking chance of that now that I get a do-over, but that was mean and she’d never understand the reference to a do-over anyway.
“Do you have a minute?” I asked, deciding on feeling her out about what the real issue was.
In typical I’m a yoga fitness queen behavior, Mom crossed her legs as she squatted into a seated position and placed her hands on her knees. “Sounds serious, Michael, and I’ve got as much time as you need.”
“Oh, you’re just loving this aren’t you?” I teased.
“Maybe,” she giggled.
“I’m about to admit something to you that may come as a total shock, Mom, so I’m warning you.”
Her face fell faster than an overloaded elevator with a broken cable. “Nobody better be pregnant in this chat,” she said, actual fear evident on her face.
“Not likely. I’m a virgin, Mom.”
She let out a massive breath and bent forward over her crossed legs to kiss the floor.
“Okay, that was weird. Even for you,” I said.
“You’re still a virgin?” she asked, her once petrified face turning to amusement, relief, or maybe both. “I’ll admit, I wondered,” she added.
The conversation felt gross so I didn’t answer her follow-up you’re still a virgin question.
“This is about someone else,” I stated, thinking I might be confusing her, like when someone asks questions for someone else when it’s really for them.
“But it’s also about me,” I quickly corrected. “Just not me and Jen.”
“Okay.”
I went straight to it, pardon the pun. “I think I might be gay,” I said matter-of-factly. “Actually, I am gay,” I clarified.
Her face didn’t register shock, disappointment, or any of the expected reactions.
Of course, this was my mother. There wouldn’t be any condemnation or lectures about disgraceful lifestyle choices.
Mom had the adage that all love was good.
If it was love, and if that love was pure of heart, it was a good love.
“I’m so happy you’re able to trust me with your true self,” she said.
“I think I might like someone,” I stated.
“And am I to assume that I’d be correct about whom you may be feeling this way?” she asked, doing her absolute best to check off in her mind the most thoughtful and kind words she could employ in our discussion so as not to offend me.
“I think you can guess.”
“And does he know you’re having these feelings?”
“Yes, I told him today,” I said, pushing my hair out of my eyes. I needed a haircut but apparently this shaggy look was all the rage for high school boys. And that’s what I was, a high school boy. “I may have freaked him out,” I admitted. “Said some dumb shit.”
“First off, Michael. What’s with the language? You are not an adult and this is my house, so knock it off please.”
Being spoken to like a teenager by your mother was a strange feeling when you went through it once before and hoped you’d picked up a lesson or two along the road all these years later.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
We stared at each other, her studying me carefully.
I knew what she was doing too. This was her deciding in her mind about how to proceed.
This was the mother who was careful about every serious conversation she had or decisions she made.
My mother hated when parents demanded their children be something they aren’t or attempted to dictate their lives.
“Seems like you’re serious, son,” she began. “And of course, I’ll support any decision you make if the commitment from you is there.”
“Thanks,” I whispered, still staring into her green eyes, eyes Dad had said had the power for life or death depending on how she looked at you.
Today, her gaze was brimming with love. I’d come to expect that from my mother.
Witnessing her amazing capacity for love for the second time as a child made the pain of her death hit me suddenly.
I gulped down my emotions and blinked back the tears. “Remember how I said I felt indifferent about me and Jen a couple minutes ago?” I asked.
She nodded.
“I feel differently about Coop. I don’t know when it happened, Mom.” That was a lie, I knew.
“Different than you did yesterday or different than you do about Jennifer? Because this seems kind of sudden, Michael. Unless, of course, you’ve been thinking about everything for a while.”
“I’ve been thinking about it for a really long time,” I said, and that was the truth. A decade or so was a long time, wasn’t it? “And I fuc . . . I mean, I messed up pretty good out there earlier.” I jacked my thumb to the front yard.
“Yeah, I didn’t miss your mood when you came in,” she stated, nodding, inflating her cheeks before letting the air out slowly while she thought about my words. “What exactly did you say to him?”
“I told him I was finally giving in to him.”
Mom’s eyes widened and she exhaled, sucking in her cheeks this time. She was surprised by my indelicate comment too.
“Bad, right?” I asked, biting my lower lip.
“Yikes,” she said, shaking her head slowly. “Not your finest hour, Michael. Is that what you’re doing? Are you giving in to him?”
“No, of course not. I was just mad because he wasn’t listening to me.”
“Listening to you about what?” she asked.
“He was saying I’ve been acting weird or grown up all of a sudden. He thinks I’m hiding something because I’ve been odd these days.”
“Are you hiding something?”
She was good at the mom-speak. I’d forgotten what a master she’d been at getting me to spill the beans. Dad used to warn me about asking Mom for help or seeking her opinion if I didn’t have the time to be schooled in her wisdom.
Yeah, I’m your son from the future. Whattaya think about that? “No. I just finally realized my feelings for Coop are no longer brotherly or just best friends,” I began, suddenly registering that I was having a very unusual discussion with my mother about a boy. “This is weird, Mom.”
“What? Admitting that you discovered your true feelings for Cooper? Or telling your mother about it?”
“Both. I think I messed up with him because earlier I told him I loved him as more than a friend,” I confessed. “He looked crushed, Mom. You know how he gets.”
“I do know how Cooper gets. He’s sensitive, Michael. He looks to you to lead and he needs to feel safe. You’ve managed that since you were toddlers.”
“Any suggestions on how to fix it?”
“You know what I’m going to say,” she reminded me. I did, but she still went ahead. “You start with two words and you follow those up with three of the most important words. Remember?”
“I’m sorry and I love you,” I said quietly.
“Start there, honey. This is Cooper we’re talking about.”
I stood in front of her and extended my hands which she accepted so I could pull her from the floor and into a hug. “I’m sorry, Mom, and I love you.”
“I love you too, and tell him just like that, son.”
I watched as she made her way to the door. My mother was a special person, here or there, and in any universe.