Chapter 33
brENT
Another yawn has me shaking my head to try to clear the cobwebs. I’m so damn tired.
“You should really sleep at night,” Mo says with disapproval.
No one can make you feel like you’ve done something wrong like Morgan Levine.
I smile, nodding in agreement. I do sleep at night, but not very well.
Between staying up late enough to make sure Rafe is asleep before I come into the room and getting up early enough to assure I’m out of the room before he wakes up, I’m fucking tired.
Yes, I’m being cowardly. I don’t want to see him right now. I don’t want to talk to him. I need to get my emotions back in check first. I need my heart to heal a little.
Not that it’s broken. Not in the usual ‘broken heart’ story. Unless you consider unrequited love the usual story.
“You’re right.”
“That doesn’t sound like you’re going to go to bed earlier tonight,” she says.
“Oh, no. I’m going to go to bed right after dinner. Or maybe before dinner. I’ll go to bed without dinner.”
She’s even less impressed with this than she had been with my staying up too late. I laugh. Tapping her tablet, I bring her attention back to the task at hand.
This isn’t the first time Mo has asked me for help with her writing. Whenever she’s assigned something that she has to write from nothing, she seeks me out. I love it.
Right now, I love the distraction. Mo is back in school, which means Edin is back on campus, too.
Though he’s back for hockey as well. The entourage that surrounds Mo and Edin means there’s a handful of guys who returned to campus early.
With Edin comes Elijah. With Elijah comes his twin, Ezekiel. With the twins back, Mario is back too.
It’s helpful having others around. It means it’s easier to find entertainment. It’s easier to escape before Rafe enters the room because someone greets him on his way.
Yes, I’m a coward. Already established.
“Did you see the stockings Rafe brought back for me and my dad?” Mo asks as she looks at her new watch. It’s much like the one I received in the stocking I opened, but it has a bright purple band.
“I did.”
“You weren’t there to open them with us,” she accuses.
“I’m sorry.”
“You weren’t sleeping.”
“Focus, Mo.”
If she had the vocabulary and understanding, she’d call me out on my avoidance right now. I give it a year, and she’ll know the right words to say. As it is, she’s staring at me. Trying to figure it out. What am I hiding? What secrets do I not want to tell her?
Mo turns to her tablet and frowns. “I don’t like this assignment.”
“Why?”
“It’s supposed to be about our second parent. I already wrote about Dad, and now I need to write about Mom. My teacher didn’t want to hear that I don’t have a second parent.”
“That sounds very assholery.”
Mo nods. “I agree.”
“What did your dad say?”
She shakes her head. “That I can write about him again if I want to, and if I get a bad grade, he will reiterate that it’s a jerky move to force a kid to write about a second parent when they don’t have one in their lives.”
“What if you write about Eli?”
Mo meets my eyes and gives me a sly smile. “I would, but I don’t think Dad would like that.”
I frown. “Why?”
She sighs, and before my eyes, she ages ten years. “He’s not ready.”
I grip her wrist in support. “Okay, how about this? Let’s write about your mother and illustrate to your teacher exactly why you shouldn’t be forced to.”
Mo’s eyebrows knit together as she looks at me. She chews her lip. “Okay,” she says hesitantly. “What should I write?”
“Let’s begin with what you remember. Write down any specific memory. Specific feeling.”
“They’re not good.”
“I know, Mo,” I say. “I understand what that feels like.”
She meets my eyes again. “You do?”
“I do. How about this: I know this is going to be hard for you, so for every memory you write down, I’ll write down one of my own, okay?”
Mo nods. “Okay.” She stares at her tablet again. A minute passes. The first thing she writes down is ‘yells all the time.’ Then, she slides the tablet to me.
Under her words, I write, ‘never smiles at me.’ I slide it back.
She nods when she reads my words. Her next ones are, ‘throws glasses. They break.’
Mine are, ‘makes me feel like I’m not loved.’
Mo inhales and closes her eyes. Silently, she wipes her eye and swallows as she writes, ‘says she wishes I wasn’t here.’
I hate her teacher.
Her hands are surprisingly steady when she slides the tablet back. My words are similar. ‘Prays for a different son.’
Back and forth we go. I don’t write anything beyond my parents’ dislike of me. Nothing about my sexuality. My goal is to help Mo write her feelings, and I don’t want her to focus on mine. I know it’ll bring up questions, and that’s not the point of this exercise.
When we’ve filled up the screen, I turn the tablet off and slide her milkshake toward her. “I think we need a break.”
Mo nods. She silently sips her shake as she stares at nothing. After a few minutes, she raises her eyes to mine. “I didn’t know you had a mean mommy, too.”
“I think more people have mean parents than you think.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is.”
“Did you have a nice dad like me?”
“No,” I admit. “My dad was worse than my mom.”
Tears fill her eyes. “Then who loved you when your parents didn’t?”
Fucking hell. Her question stings. I look away and shake my head. “No one,” I whisper.
Mo wraps her arms around me. “I love you, Brent.”
I rest my head on top of hers. “I love you, too, Mo.”
For some reason, Rafe pops up in my mind then. Rafe and his family. The love in his house is so big, so potent, and overflowing that you can practically feel it like a tangible thing. Why couldn’t I have felt even a little bit of that growing up?
“I have an old aunt,” I tell Mo. “She tried to love me. And I have some uncles, too. When my parents…” I try to determine what’s the right way to say this.
As I’m thinking about it, I remember all the shit Mo has already been through in her short nine years and determine that maybe she can just have most of the truth.
“When my parents kicked me out of the house because they didn’t like the person I am, my aunt loved me. And my uncles did too.”
“They kicked you out?” she asks, horrified.
“Yeah. In a way similar to the one your grandparents had to kick your mom and dad out of their houses and into their own with you. It’s different, of course. But in a way, it’s the same. Punishing your kids for being who they are.”
Mo growls. I smile at the sound that leaves her throat. “I hate them,” she mutters.
I’ve heard children being scolded for using that word. Hate. It’s such a strong word. But this isn’t hating someone who looks different. Or talks differently. Dresses differently. Likes girls instead of boys or vice versa.
This hate is derived from being a victim of cruelty. Mo is the biggest victim of all. She deserves to hate the people who put her and her parents in that position.
“Daddy says Mom was sick too,” she says. “I don’t know how to write about Mom and be fair because she was sick too, just like Daddy, but… she was mean to me all the time. But she was mean because she was sick?”
She’s unsure when she asks.
“You know what? There is never an excuse for being mean to a child. Maybe your mom was sick, but as you said, your dad was too. They treated you very differently. Didn’t they?”
“Yeah,” she agrees, nodding. She pulls her tablet toward her and turns it on. “So, how do I write this? Where do I begin?”
“That depends. How much of your past do you want to share with your teacher?”
Mo chews her lip again as she stares at the list we made together. I watch as she flicks the page and writes, ‘My mom and dad were sick, but my dad loved me, even though he was sick. My mom didn’t.’
I watch as she writes her thoughts. Her past. Painting a picture that a nine-year-old shouldn’t understand as clearly as she does, never mind having lived through it. She writes for a very long time. Tears fall, though she makes little effort to wipe them away.
I sit quietly with her. Only when she leans her shoulder against me do I give her a hug, letting her know that I’m right here. She has support. When she takes the strength from me that she needs, she sits up again and continues to write.
It’s much longer than it needs to be. It’s raw and emotional.
It’s too big for a child. We talk about the organization a little bit and correct some grammar.
As much as I think some of it can be cut, I leave it just as it is.
If her teacher feels the need to make these kids feel singled out for living in a single-parent situation, then they’re going to get the raw and ugly.
“Is it okay?” Mo asks when we’re finished.
“Yes. It’s beautifully written.”
“You usually make me erase some things,” she notes.
“I do. You’re right. And I think there are some things you can erase. But I don’t think you should.”
“Oh.”
“I want you to promise me something.” She meets my eyes. “Always keep this essay, Mo. Always know where it is. Never erase it.”
“Why?”
“Because some things shouldn’t be forgotten. As bad as it hurts, you should remember all these emotions. Believe it or not, it’ll help you heal all the places that hurt inside you as you get older.”
“Do you have essays like this?”
“No. I think I should have some, though.”
Mo nods. We remain at the picnic table talking about our mothers until Edin and Eli come to pick Mo up. She gives her father a big hug, which I can tell he’s a little confused about. I smile. Then Mo pulls Eli away to show him a new cheer routine and ask for his help to make her better.
“How did it go?” Edin asks as he watches them.
“I think you need to read it,” I tell him. “We discussed who else she could write about, but instead, we chose to write about her mother.”
He looks at me.
“It’s… a lot. I think you need to read it. Maybe don’t comment on it, but you should know the things she remembers and how she still feels.”
Edin closes his eyes. “Thanks.”
“She’s an amazing girl, Edin. You’ve done an incredible job with her. Did you read her essay about you?”
He smiles, eyes dropping. “I did. The romanticized memories of a child.”
“No, Edin. I think you don’t see it clearly.
Your view is coming from a person suffering just as much as your young child.
But to that young child, you were her only beacon of hope and love.
That’s a huge impact on her. You are the reason she’s able to smile and laugh right now. You understand that, don’t you?”
Edin doesn’t look entirely convinced, even as he nods.
“Read her essay about her mother. Then read her essay about you again. Yes, these are the feelings and memories of a child. But not a child so far removed from her childhood.”
He nods. “Thanks.”
In the distance, I see Rafe leaving the frat.
As if seeing him reminds me how very fucking tired I am, I yawn.
Keeping my eyes trained on him, I shift to keep myself from his view should he look over here.
Do I manage to keep it subtle, and Edin not suspicious of my weird behavior? Probably not. But he doesn’t ask.
Once Rafe is around the corner, I excuse myself from Edin, Mo, and Eli to head back to the frat house. I take a quick shower and then climb into bed, without dinner, just as I told Mo I was going to do.
I’m so damn tired that I fall asleep almost right away, despite it being early. I’m awoken when the door snaps closed.
“Sorry,” Rafe says. “I didn’t mean to wake you. Didn’t realize you were in here.”
I grunt and tuck myself back under the blankets.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” I murmur. “Just tired.”
He doesn’t answer. Doesn’t point out that it’s my own fault for being so damn tired when I’ve kept weird hours lately. I listen to his footsteps moving around the room, trying to ignore the way my heart thunders in my chest.
When he’s close to the bed, I hold my breath. Fuck. Is he going to make me talk to him?
“I’m heading to Enfield and Xavi’s. Want to come?” Rafe asks, his voice quiet. Hopeful? Am I imagining that?
“No,” I whisper. “Thanks.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Just tired. Maybe I have a cold.” It’s a lie. Then again, I feel a little stuffy.
“Okay,” he says. I think I hear his disappointment, and it makes my chest hurt. I’m being an asshole. Protecting myself by being an asshole.
“I’ll see you later, then.”
“Yep.”
I listen for his footsteps. It’s a minute before he walks away. I’m such a dick. Even as the door opens and closes, I stay under my covers. Hiding from the world.
My phone pings, and I blindly reach out to grope for it. The notification is not from Rafe, which makes me irrationally sad. But it’s from Edin, so I open the message.
Edin Levine
Mo asked me to email you her essay. She says you need to keep it too.
I smile and close my eyes.
Me
Thank you. I’ll keep it.
Edin Levine
Thank you for helping her with this. You’re right. I think I needed to read it. I’m not sure I feel any different, but it helps to know how Mo felt.
Me
You’re welcome. Always happy to help Mo. And you, but I think you handle your own essays pretty well.
Edin Levine
Don’t tempt me. I hate essays.
I laugh and close my eyes. My phone pings again, but when I open my eyes, it’s not from Edin. It’s from Rafe. I read it through the notification bar so he can’t see that I’ve read it.
Rafe Holt
I wish you’d come with me.
God, he can’t say shit like that. It makes my heart hurt.