Chapter Nineteen
Three things were pissing me off right now and only one of them was fixable. First: Sapphire had been using my phone to make playlists for all our car journeys, and me being an idiot had hit shuffle before my drive without thought. Now I was being forced to listen to Justin Bieber hits from way too many years ago, as though that was ever something I needed to have burned my ears.
The second issue was that my entire body hurt way too much for me to be driving so much. I’d been doing it far too often lately, with random outings, missions, searching for Sapphire, and now today’s quest of acting like a damn stalker. Not only were my freshly attached, non-robotic fingers still healing. But the bullet wound in my shoulder and the general aches from the car crash weren’t helping. Mental stress and grief aside, I felt like complete shit. I’d spent almost an hour sat on the shower floor, just letting the hot water scald my spine as I stared into the void and tried to empty my mind.
I couldn’t control the first two issues, even the music. I wasn’t in the mood to stop speeding so I could find a different playlist. But I could control the third problem that seemed far more important than little old me - I could fix my mother and Misha’s relationship just a bit so that my baby brother wasn’t going around with as much guilt as he had been that he did not deserve. And maybe I could help wipe some of the tears off his face and the stress from his brain. That was what I could do.
The hotel my mom stayed in, just past the Vegas strip, was nice and all, but it wasn’t as fancy as I had been expecting. It was a generic three-story building, with a small helpdesk and a single member of staff, and that was it. There was no security, no cameras, and no fancy statues, art and whatever the fuck else I had presumed would be here. A quick look around at the map as I headed to the room number my mother had told me she was in, there wasn’t even anything more than a single small restaurant and a tiny gym. No pool, or bar, or anything else. It was judgemental of me, but I had been expecting more from a hotel owned by Raya. But I supposed it made sense that not everything in her portfolio catered to the rich – she needed to have control over things the everyday man use as well, and this place seemed the sort of location that the shadier types of folks would stay.
Within three minutes of snooping through the ugly patterned carpet corridors with the slightly too orange lights, I found the right room. My fist pounded against the door a handful of times as I called out, trying not to be too loud and piss off the other people staying nearby.
“Mom, it’s Linc. Open up!” I didn’t know if she would speak to me, but it was worth a shot.
As much as I didn’t like being ignored by her for so long, I wasn’t here for me. I was here for Misha because he genuinely needed her – he needed his mom. So as much as I would have preferred to leave her be until she felt ready to come back to us, I couldn’t. I had no patience left to wait for her to figure her shit out. Perhaps she felt the need for our reunion the same way I did, because I heard her call out that she was coming. And a moment later she opened the door, but didn’t wave me in. Instead, she hovered in the doorway, looking a little worse for wear.
I didn’t want to go inside, though. One look through the door could show just how unlike herself she truly was, even if Sapphire had said she seemed fine when the pair had met up in the hospital. There were empty bottles overflowing out of the trash can, a couple of no doubt empty pill bottles on the desk in the back. My mom didn’t exactly scream MDMA taker, but she was more than likely on something for anxiety, depression, or whatever the hell else I figured was wrong with her from a single look at her facial expression and the haunted lifelessness to her dark eyes.
Takeout boxes littered the desk too, and I went to get a better look out of sheer nosiness, but she stepped closer to me, pulling the door a little shut behind her. I could see the flush of pink on her cheeks that told me she didn’t want me seeing the mess inside her space and I got it. It wasn’t fun showing people the physical manifestation of your suffering, even if the fact that letting others in to witness it was one of the best ways to heal.
“Lincoln, what are you here for, pet?” Her voice was rough, her eyes lined with darkness and pain.
She looked like she was struggling – like she was fighting a battle with herself to be normal.
A fight she was losing.
“Mom.” All the desire to get things sorted – the temper I had always wondered where I got it from that had been keeping me awake at night – vanished into a dull echo of a flame as I stared at her. “I love you, and I know you’re hurt right now but…” My hands clenched into fists, words dying.
“But what?” She frowned at me and I just knew the words that I would follow up with would feel like they burned my tongue.
“But I’m tired of picking up your slack as a parent.” I was almost right; the words felt like razor blades in my throat. “I’m not saying you were ever a terrible mom, because you weren’t. The trouble is you were just never around enough to be a great mom all the time and you’re doing the same thing now.”
Was I a complete piece of shit for being here? Did it make me the worst son in the world to tell her that I loved her, but she had failed a little as a mother, when her husband had only been dead for a few weeks? When my dad wasn’t even done haunting my nightmares, let alone enough of a memory for me to think of his name or face without wanting to cry… Fuck, I probably was a villain.
Swallowing down my self-hatred, I carried on talking. “I love Misha and I don’t for a single second regret anything I’ve done for him. But I’m his brother, I’m not his dad. I shouldn’t have had to help raise him – I shouldn’t have had to help raise everyone else, whilst you swanned off playing doctor. And I sure as fuck shouldn’t have to be the one keeping things together now when all I want to do is fall apart.”
The words I’d been holding in my chest for so long – for years, in some cases – came blurting out in a symphony of pain and disbelief that I was really doing this. I was doing this now. Of all the times in the world to ask – to ask why I had never got to just be a brother – was this truly the right moment?
“He watched his dad die in front of his eyes, and the girl he loves was kidnapped. Months after being tortured… and I don’t care what you need to do to help him. I don’t care what you have to promise your God to make you act like you’re doing better, but you need to do it. Misha needs you and I need you to help him. I need you to make him feel better because I don’t know how, and I can’t stand to watch him suffer.”
Once I stopped talking, the corridor was entirely silent for far too long. Long enough that tears streamed down my mother’s face, and I truly felt like a gigantic piece of shit. Even if I didn’t regret what I had said, I didn’t enjoy upsetting her. I didn’t want her to be hurting. And the burn in my throat and behind my eyes was more proof that I hated each word that had even said and would no doubt spend my night feeling far worse than I already did.
“Linc.” She whispered my name eventually, as she harshly wiped her eyes. “I… I don’t know… I think…” She cut herself off with a curse.
It was all too much for me to take – I hated seeing her cry.
“I’m gonna go, but yeah. It would be nice if you could come home.” I stepped back, feeling far too awkward to want to stay where I was and deal with the aftermath of what I had said.
But I didn’t make it far. Three steps down the corridor, my mother said my name again, and I turned back.
“Do you remember me telling you about my friend from college?”
It was an odd question to ask, but seeing at it was better than having her yell at me or something like I’d expected, I didn’t question her.
“Yeah. You gave me and Mish his name as our middle names.” I replied. “And I remember you saying he was a college friend, and he died.” I’d always found it a little odd that she had liked a man so much she named her kids after him, but it seemed I hadn’t been wrong in my assumption there was more to the story. For a moment later, my mother finally shared a secret I had always wondered about.
“He was murdered.” She corrected. “And he wasn’t my friend, he was my fiancé.”
I reeled back. “What?”
“He was older than me, but he was in a class of mine, and we worked together on a project and became inseparable after that.” She said slowly, wiping at her face. “We were soulmates, and I thought I had finally found happiness. But like with most things in life, it never worked out. He was taken from me, and I was left alone again – left to just deal with the rubbish that life throws at me.”
Guilt bit at my heart more than it was already. “How did he die?” I asked softly.
“It’s not important.” She waved me off. “But the reason I’m telling you is so that you understand I’ve done this before – I’ve lost someone that was mine more than once and I cannot handle it again.”
“Mom…” My voice broke.
She carried on talking. “Things aren’t supposed to be this way; things are supposed to be easy and they’re not. And I can’t keep pretending otherwise – I can’t keep acting for the sake of others.”
I got it. Even if I hadn’t lost my girl, I almost had more than once. It was the worst feeling in the world, and if that had been permanent? If Sapphire hadn’t fought to come back to us?
I would have died. I would have wanted to die.
I would have wanted to do worse than hide in a hotel away from everyone else.
“But that is why I’m here. One of the many reasons.” Mom sniffled. “I needed time to push past what I feel and remember the reality of my life. I needed a bit of space to come to terms with how things are now and what I can do next. That was all. I never did it to hurt Misha. I would never hurt Misha. You should know that he’s my… that he is important to me.”
It shouldn’t have bothered me that she worded things that way. That she said she would never have hurt Misha. It shouldn’t have pissed me off or saddened me to feel like she didn’t seem fussed about hurting me.
“And I get that, and I’m really not here to be a dick to you. I just came to say my peace, and to tell you that Misha needs you.” With a firm set of my jaw, I said a polite response instead of asking why she hadn’t mentioned me.
I didn’t fucking care. I couldn’t care. It was pointless, and I was a fucking adult. Why did it matter if my mom didn’t love me as much as my brother? I was fine. It was nothing.
“Good. Then I’ll be home soon, and I’ll make sure he’s okay – I won’t let him be hurt more.”
“Fine. Glad to hear you can come back and be there for him.” I snapped a little. “Hopefully you don’t have to go back to work again before he feels better.”
Okay, yeah, I was a little bothered. A tiny piece of me was lashing out because I wasn’t enjoying being in second place, even to Misha.
She sighed. “I do want to be there more. I wanted to be a better mother – to be more present. But I couldn’t when you were born. Some things are more important and it wasn’t personal. But I’ve booked a sabbatical now – I did it the minute Misha called me to tell me he was struggling. So I won’t be going back to that job, and I will be here for your brother like you wanted me to – I know he’s important and his happiness is what I need to focus on.”
“More important than me?” I couldn’t bite my tongue. “You’ve been around for Misha more than you were with me. I barely remember you for the first few years of my life – I only remember dad. And you’ve never once missed work for me, but now that Misha is hurting, you’re straight on the phone for some time off?”
Being a doctor was great. Helping people, curing sickness, and being the last friendly face a dying person saw? I was proud of her for all of that and she was amazing for it. But that didn’t make up for the fact she had chosen that job, those strangers, over me an awful lot. It didn’t change the fact I had been the one to help Misha more than her because she had thought other things were more important.
She sighed like I was annoying her – as though I was the one being ridiculous or something.
“It’s nothing personal, Lincoln. You can’t take it that way just because I bonded better with your brother and tried to be home more for him. It’s not my fault.”
Whose fault was it then? Was it mine? Should I have done something different as a fucking five-year-old to make my mommy love me more?
“Fine.” I snapped. “It’s no problem.”
With a nod of my head, I walked away, almost storming down the corridor, barely able to restrain myself from saying nasty things I knew I would one day regret. I wanted to tell her to fuck herself and that I had been fine enough without her, but it was a lie. I’d wanted my mommy more than once as a kid and I may have been twenty-five but I still wanted her. I needed her. It was fucking annoying, really.
“Lincoln.” She called my name out, and I turned my head to face her, despite knowing I wouldn’t be able to hold my temper back for much longer. “I’ll be home by the end of the day.” She said before she disappeared into her hotel room with a click of the door.
I knew grief changed people, but to see it happening – to spot the way my mother hadn’t seemed even the tiniest bit concerned about me, was something else entirely.
Moments later, I got into my car, turned the engine on, and pulled out of the road the hotel was on. Then the tears started falling and they wouldn’t stop. So much so I had no idea how I made it home, or just how long I had been idling on the driveway, engine running, entirely in my own world. It wasn’t until the passenger door opened and a vanilla scented angel climbed in next to me, her hand coming down to grab mine.
“Bunny?” Sapphire murmured. “What is wrong? Talk to me and tell me what hurts and I’ll fix it.”
I shook my head, not sure what to say or how to explain why I was having a breakdown over nothing and everything all at once. All I knew was that despite her offer, and knowing just how much she meant her words, there was nothing she could do to fix things.
“Dad’s dead and mom loves Misha more than me. And I feel like a fucking child for being pissed about it.” I wiped my eyes a little rough. “I don’t know how to help Misha feel better. I don’t know how to keep our family safe, and I don’t know how to get over everything that happened.” I nudged my chin at her. “I love you, and you died too. You might have come back, but for a moment there you were gone, and I can’t handle it all. I can’t keep pretending that everything is fine, because it’s not.”
Sapphire didn’t say anything back to me at first. She just climbed onto my lap, resting her head on my chest.
“None of this is fair.” She whispered after a moment. “I don’t know how to make you feel less sad inside, but I promise I will try. I will be here to do whatever it is you need me to do.” She swallowed a lump in her throat. “I also promise that I love you. That I will never pick Misha over you, even though I love him, too. We are all a family, and we are all equal – you will never be worth less than anyone else.”
“You sure about that? I was a dick to you for a bit. None of the others did that.” I said.
She shook her head against my chest, her arms holding on tighter. “You were hurt for me, had my back, and looked out for me in ways I needed it. But you were never a dick, Lincoln. You have always been kind and strong, and I know that will not change. So yes, I am sure. I am sure that I love you, and I am sure that you are more than enough – you are a good man, and anyone who doesn’t see that is an idiot. And if you and Misha were hanging on the edge of the cliff, and I could only pull up one of you, I would let you both fall. Then I would jump. Because I would not choose between you or pick him first.”
She held me even tighter, as though her touch could ward away the darkness in my head. We stayed together like that for a rather long time. It had to have been uncomfortable for her, but she never said a word. She just stroked her hand down my arm, whispered random niceties and promised that whatever it was that bothered us in life, we could face it and we would be okay.
She wasn’t leaving me, and I wasn’t alone.
Eventually my words came back properly, the tears dried up, and I could explain what had happened and why I was feeling so out of whack. Sapphire listened intently to each word and never once did anything other than support me and offer words of comfort.
If I’d known how much she would mean to me the second I met her, I wouldn’t have wasted any time. I would have locked her in my bedroom and spent the rest of my life trying to show her how much I needed her and wanted her…