40. Shane #2
“Thank you for having me,” she says with that famous fake-ass Brenda smile. Everything she does grits on my nerves, from the clicking sound of her heels on the floor to the overpoweringly sweet perfume she wears.
“Please have a seat, and we’ll get started.” Kristy motions to one of the two chairs across from hers before looking at me and gesturing to the other.
“I’m good,” I say, staying put by the window. The farther I am from her the better. If I get too close, I might strangle her.
“Shane, must you always be difficult?” my mother says, sounding exhausted with me already.
“It’s okay. There are no assigned seats,” Kristy says with a smile. “So, Shane tells me you two don’t always see eye to eye.”
I scoff. That’s a very watered-down version of what I told her. Although, I doubt it would be recommended for a therapist to tell someone I called them a raging cunt.
Both women look at me before my mother says, “Yes, well, Shane’s always been—” She pauses to think about how she wants to say it. “Harder than my other children. He got in trouble a lot, and well, you know, the drugs are obviously an issue.”
“Right, but he didn’t have a drug problem when he lived with you. Correct?”
“He smoked weed. He was suspended a couple of times for having it on him at school.”
“Gotcha, but the other drugs started at your dad’s, is that right?” she asks me this time.
“Yeah,” I say flatly.
“Brenda, I’m going to be blunt with you. I think your son feels unlovable partially because he doesn’t feel like you love him.”
I give her a look because I’ve never used those words. I don’t give a rat’s ass if my mother loves me. It’s hard to miss something you never had to begin with.
“That’s absurd. Of course I love him. He’s my son.”
I laugh because what’s absurd is the fact that she just said that.
My mother doesn’t love me anymore than the man on the moon.
I’m not entirely sure she loves anyone other than herself.
Even her love for Ash is solely contingent on my sister making her look good, not because she just genuinely loves her.
She turns to me with a scowl. “What do you find so funny?”
“You love me? You don’t even know me. You haven’t known anything about me since I left Raleigh.”
She cocks her head to the side and crosses her legs. “That’s an exaggeration.”
“No, it’s not. We haven’t spoken outside of you bitching at me for rumors you heard since I left.”
She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.
I shouldn’t be surprised she’s acting like this, but I am. How is she capable of acting like she’s done anything outside of ignoring me for the last decade. I stopped being her son the day I moved in with my dad.
“You shipped me off to get the hell beat out of me every day and you never looked back. As long as I was out of your hair, right?”
She rears back. “Okay. That’s enough. You know that’s not true.”
“No, I don’t. I think it’s very much true. Can you think of one time when you cared to check on me? You didn’t even care when it was happening.”
“I didn’t know until it was too late. I told you that.”
She did, but I still don’t believe her. How could she not? Also, maybe if she’d called, I’d have told her what was going on. Probably not, but who knows because she never did.
“What about after? You never bothered to check on me then either. Not even when I had to testify in a courtroom full of people to everything he did.” My pulse picks up, pounding in my ears.
I feel like a tea kettle that’s been left on the stove for far longer than it should have been, and now there’s nothing that can stop the words from spilling from my mouth.
“You never cared that I was on the verge of killing myself for the last few years because I couldn’t deal with my life without a substantial amount of cocaine, oxy, and heroin.
As long as you didn’t have to deal with me, you were happy. ”
“Shane—”
“No. You left me with him.” Emotions I didn’t even know were there, crash into me in violent waves, making my face and neck heat.
“You let him have me, and he ruined my fucking life! I know I was a pain in the ass when I lived with you, but did I really deserve that? You know what he was like. He did the same shit to you when you were married to him. I was there! I tried to fucking stop him! I tried to protect you! You act like I’m some monster, but I’m just a product of my fucking environment. An environment that you put me in!”
No one says anything as I stand there feeling exposed, my chest heaving, and tears in my eyes. I didn’t expect all of that to come out of my mouth. I don’t really know where it all came from. But I meant every word, and I think it might have felt good to let it all out.
My mother turns away from me and wipes her face. When she looks back, she has tears in her eyes.
“Brenda, maybe you should try telling him how you do feel since you seem to disagree on that topic.”
“It’s fine.” My tongue coats every word with venom as they leave my lips. “I don’t need her to love me. I’ve done just fine without her.”
My lip curls, and I turn away to stare out the window, my hands balled at my sides.
When she speaks again, her voice is softer.
“You’re right. You were difficult, and I thought it would be easier if you lived with him.
I never imagined he’d do all of those things to you.
I really didn’t. When I found out what happened, I felt so guilty.
” She stops for a moment to compose herself.
“I couldn’t even look at you without feeling like a failure as a mother.
Eventually, it was easier to just blame our bad relationship on your problems than it was to face you and admit how badly I’d let you down. ”
I don’t turn around. I can’t look at her. She might not be wholly responsible for what happened to me, but she had a part in it, and I’m so angry about that. I don’t think I realized that until just now. I mean, I always knew I couldn’t stand her, but the actual anger was locked away somewhere.
But it’s not anymore.
“I did love you, though. I still do. I will always love you because you are my child.”
When I still don’t turn around, Kristy says, “That’s really good guys. Shane, how does that make you feel?”
Gritting my teeth, I finally face her. “I don’t buy it. How could you do that to someone you love? You abandoned me. Do you have any idea how bad things have been? Do you know how close I was to dying because of shit that he fucking introduced me to?”
She looks at me nervously, asking, “What do you mean?”
“Oh yeah, Dad’s the one who first gave me coke. That’s who you left me with. So, tell me again how you fucking love me?”
Her eyes widen, and she practically gasps. “Shane—” She shakes her head, her brows pinching as a tear rolls down her cheek. “I’m so sorry.”
“Save your bullshit apologies. I don’t need them.”
“I didn’t know.”
A blaze ignites under my skin. “You knew how he was, though! You knew before you sent me there, and you did it anyway.”
“I was wrong! I’m sorry!”
Sucking my teeth, I turn away from her before I explode.
I don’t want her apology. I wanted her to give a shit about me, but she didn’t, and we can’t change that now.
Her apology can’t go back and keep him from beating the shit out of me at fifteen.
It won’t undo my addiction, and it doesn’t make me feel any fucking better.
I still hate her, and bringing her was a waste of all of our time.
At first when our session ends, I’m pissed. So pissed, I’d like to burn down the whole fucking building, but as the day goes on, that rage ebbs and by the time I’ve slept on it, I realize Kristy was right.
It takes a few more individual therapy sessions, but eventually I come to the conclusion that the session with my mother actually did help.
I still don’t love my mother, but the longer I’ve thought about it the more I understand that none of what happened was actually about me at all.
My parents were both incompetent. Neither of them were in any position to be parents.
That’s not my fault. I was a kid who made poor choices and needed parental guidance.
They dropped the ball, and I’ve been floundering trying to figure everything out on my own ever since.
She might have been blaming me for my problems back then but hearing her say she knew it was her that let me down flipped a switch in my brain.
I was never a fuck-up.
I was a kid. That’s all.
The good news? I don’t have to stay stuck in my past. I can just move on. That might sound so simple and stupid to everyone else, but I’ve spent all of my life thinking my problems stemmed from the fact that I was bad. Now that I see it clearly, I know I’m not, and I can finally let it go.
Which is exactly what I plan on doing when I walk out the door today because it’s finally time to go home.
“So… how are you feeling?” Kristy asks, smiling at me from behind the desk.
“I don’t know. Excited I guess, but a little nervous.”
“Totally normal! Shane, you’ve really come a long way since we first started meeting. I’m very proud of you.”
I pinch my lips together to hold back a smile.
“The work doesn’t end when you leave here, though. It’s very important you meet with your therapist regularly. It’s also highly recommended you find some meetings to attend. You have your sponsor, right?”
I nod.
“It also probably wouldn’t hurt for Nik to have a few sessions with you. You two have been through a lot, and it’d be very normal for this transition to be hard for both of you.”
I nod again.
I’ll do whatever it takes. I’m just ready to start over. I want a life—Sundays in bed with Nik instead of waking up on the floor of Marcus’s house. I want to be able to look forward to a future with her instead of bracing for the day when she finally gets tired of my shit and leaves.
I don’t want to be the one hurting everyone around me.