Chapter Twenty-eight
Well. That’s not what I meant to say.
Ceres
My mother’s phone number could have changed. It’s a possibility. It’s a possibility that after I get the nerve to press call , someone I don’t know will pick up.
It’s also a possibility that my mother’s phone number hasn’t changed…but still…someone I don’t know will pick up.
There’s a chance my mother won’t pick up.
There’s a chance she will.
There’s a chance I won’t know what to say.
There’s a chance I default to what I normally do and say something stupid.
There’s a chance I’m making a huge mistake.
There’s so much chance that I am glad—so, so deeply glad—I waited until Friday for this moment.
Buried against Mars, huddled upright in blankets in the center of our spaceship, I stare at my mother’s contact information.
Night hasn’t fallen yet, but it’s creeping into the sky, and I can’t shake the knowledge that whatever happens in the next few minutes will be harder to deal with in the darkness than in the daylight.
Even if the darkness happens here in this world of netting and nonsense.
Seated behind me, Mars nestles his chin over my shoulder and keeps me wrapped in his limbs, safe against his chest and atop his crossed legs while he toys with my necklace. “Do you want me to press the button?” he asks.
I shake my head. “What did you ever do with the key to this?”
“To this?” he murmurs, tugging on the padlock.
“Yes.”
His lips graze my cheek as they move toward the shell of my ear. “Would you be upset if I told you I melted it down into a useless droplet that could never set you free again?”
“That’s perhaps the only right answer, actually.”
Chuckling, he reveals the tiny key inches in front of my phone, pinched between his fingers. “Sorry to disappoint. I keep it on me at all times. I like to pretend I’m the only one with a key to your heart.”
My phone screen darkens, so I lower the stressy thing in favor of looking at Mars. In the dimming light, his profile maintains an edge of ethereal beauty that feels altogether both comforting and surreal.
Nothing except him seems tangible right now.
Only he could bring me to this point, this precipice, this moment when what once was impossible becomes conceivable.
Only he could take me from panic attacks at bike shops to biking all over town and talking to several groups of strangers in a single day.
“What are you most afraid of?” he asks, tucking the key out of sight.
“I’m not sure. I don’t know what I’m trying to obtain.
I just can’t shake this feeling that my parents didn’t treat me the way Amelia’s treat her.
I can’t shake this feeling that while they didn’t give me what I needed, they did try to love me in their own way.
I spent a lot of time being the emotionally mature one.
I adapted to fill shoes too big for me as a child.
I learned to solve problems for other people and give my energy for the sake of peace on every front.
I was raised to ignore my boundaries and needs for the sake of others’ wants.
But… none of that was intentional on their part.
They were coping with their own experiences.
” I free a breath, draw my legs up, and hold them.
“I knew something was wrong. I knew I had to get away. So I ran. Here. And I wasn’t strong enough to look back.
I never knew how to put any of the pain into words.
Until now. And I just… I can’t stop thinking that maybe things would have been different if I’d known how to communicate how I was being hurt.
I don’t want to regret not trying. I don’t want to regret giving up the time we could have when…
when not everyone gets to choose the time they get. ”
Softly, Mars says, “You don’t have to do this because I lost my mom.”
“I know. It’s not guilt propelling me. It’s…” Closing my eyes, I dwell on the sensation of a teardrop skating down my cheek, and say “…hope.”
Mars’s breath fans across my neck as he bundles me up, ever closer, and murmurs, “I am here. You are not alone. You will never be alone again. No matter where you go, I will find you. And no matter how many doors you put between us, I will open them.” He kisses my flesh.
“You are mine. And I am yours. And your future, little goddess? It is full of love. Regardless of what happens. Regardless of whatever choices you make. It is full of love. ”
Resting my head against his broad shoulder, I fight back the swells of emotion creating storms inside my heart. “I love the way you threaten me, villain.”
“Good.” His hand slips around mine, lifting my phone into view again. “Whenever you’re ready.”
I may never be, which is why I wake up my phone and press call now.
The first ring echoes in my chest for the longest moments of my life. My racing heart fills my body with so much heat I can barely breathe. Please pick up battles with please, please don’t pick up . My mind fights against itself, each thundering sound choking oxygen from my very cells.
Mars holds me together, arms so tight around my body I’m likely to wake to bruises, but I don’t care. It’s the only thing keeping me from ending the call and throwing my phone at the netting ahead. Or maybe over it. Into the bushes. Where I will never again be able to find it.
The line clicks, and my stomach plummets.
“Ceres?” my mother questions, cautious, hopeful .
My heart thuds .
Tears fill my eyes, and I bite down so hard on my lip, I taste blood.
A shaking breath pours into my ear, and my mother— my mother —repeats, “Ceres? Is that you, baby?”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I croak, “Yeah.”
“Honey, is everything okay?” Desperation hardens her voice, pricking my mind with memories of how afraid that tone would always make me. I always had to fix it . It meant she was upset. Usually at my father, but I always felt like it was at me . “Are you safe? Do you need me to come get you?”
“I’m—” It hurts to speak. Every word suffocates me. “—fine.”
“Fine?” Incredulous, broken, wet. “Baby, it sounds like you’re crying. That’s not fine .”
“You’re crying, too,” I whisper.
A fragile, agonizing laugh. “Of course I am. I haven’t heard your voice in three years.”
“I’m sorry. I…” Didn’t know how to talk to you.
Didn’t want to keep hurting. Didn’t want you to think I was blaming you.
Didn’t know how to ask for help without becoming a burden when all my worth came from being the easy, good child who never caused problems, never brought drama, never needed…
anything. “I’m sorry. I miss you. I—” My voice cracks.
“—love you. I don’t know what to say. I don’t think you’ve ever been very proud of what I decided to do with my life, but I’m… I’m doing well.”
“Not proud?” Mom whispers. “Honey…I’m beyond proud. I don’t understand the particular genre you chose to get into, if you’re still in it, but I’ve always been proud of you. You started your own business and you bought a house when you were twenty-three. Of course I’m proud.”
Sagging in on myself, I plunge my fingers into my hair and whisper an intelligent, “Oh.”
“Did you need something?” Mom asks, because for as long as I can remember, relationships to my mother have always been transactional. Clear give and take. And giving more to a child, even if it was hers, never quite sat well with her worldview.
I know that.
I’m better equipped now not to be hurt by it.
“No,” I say and swallow hard. “Just… How are you? How’s dad? I…” Am trying to mend a rift? Am trying to see if it might be safe to.
Mom sighs, heavily, and takes a tone I am all too familiar with.
“Your father and I are…separated, honey. We’re in mediation for divorce right now.
He’s already living with another woman, even before the paperwork’s gone through.
” Disgust tinges her voice, but I recognize more than just it now.
Beneath it, or perhaps lacing it, is pain.
“Can you believe it? Didn’t take him long.
After you left, we argued more. I think we held on for a year, then he walked out.
” She loses some of the harshness, forcibly softens her tone, and says, “I’m sorry.
That’s probably not what you wanted to hear. ”
It’s what I would have loved to hear a decade sooner. Instead of feeling compelled to be the mediator between them, reminding them how they loved each other when they’d stopped putting effort into their own relationship ages ago. “Are you happier?” I ask, voice breaking.
My mother pauses, then sniffles, and whispers, “Yeah. After he left, I thought I’d grieve more.
But I was just relieved it was over. And then…
then the only thing missing was you.” Fragile wisps of hope light in my mother’s voice as she asks, “Is this a chance to fix things? Are you calling because you miss home? Are you coming back to the city?”
The very idea of that tightens every muscle in my body. “No. No, I’m not coming back. I like it here.”
“You like it there in that tiny town?”
“Yeah, I do.”
Something that sounds close to disapproval hums through the line, but it might be my imagination, a projection of my own constant fear that something I’ve done is wrong. Because then what am I? Imperfect.
And worthless because of it.
I don’t know. At this point, I don’t know what part my fears play and what part my parents’ negativity crafted inside me.
Mom says, “Why did you choose to call now, after so long?”
Why?
My throat closes. Why? My reasoning is irrationally emotional and confusing.
I have a friend who lost his mother and another friend who just left a home that felt more like a prison than mine ever did, and so I started thinking about mortality and regrets and the possibility that I might be strong enough to rebuild a healthier relationship with my parents…
as though I am even strong enough to leave my house by myself without weeks of mental prep and breakdowns if something goes wrong…
Mars squeezes me, for reassurance, to remind me I’m safe and he’s here. So I take a deep breath, and forge on.
“Why?” I echo, hoarse. “B-because…” I want a relationship with you. I want to heal. I want to overcome this fear that chases me everywhere, even into tiny towns like this. I want peace . Instead of any of that, I say, “I’m getting married.”