Page 14 of Wait for Him

That's what I inherited from my mother's last words.

So, I never got her goodbye. I got the void where the goodbye should've been and a permanent, low-grade wondering about whether my name was anywhere in the words she wrote.

The not knowing pisses me off.

I've imagined every version.

Maybe she told me she loved me. Maybe she apologized. Maybe she tried to explain something a kid couldn't possibly have understood, but the man I am now would give anything to read.

Sometimes I wonder if she blamed herself for leaving me. Sometimes I wonder if she blamed Dad.

And on the nights when my brain really wants to fuck with me, I wonder whether she mentioned me at all. That's the one I don't like admitting. That maybe there were pages and pages of whatever was hurting her badly enough to leave this world, and my name wasn't anywhere on them.

I could've survived almost anything she wrote.

I'm sorry.

I love you.

I couldn't stay.

Even anger. Even something unfair. At least it would've been hers.

Instead, my father decided uncertainty was kinder.

You'd think a man could make his peace with a question that has no answer. Mostly I have. It just picks days like this to come back around and knock.

“I can't believe we're actually about to graduate,” I say, looking over at Bennet. “Feels like something ends today, and tomorrow we're expected to wake up as actual adults, whether we're ready or not.”

He doesn't respond. His attention is fixed somewhere over my shoulder, eyes scanning the crowd.

I glare at him and smack the back of his head. “Are you even listening to me?”

“Yes, asshole.” He punches me in the arm without looking away. “I'm trying to find my sister. She's supposed to help me with my tie.”

I look at the knot hanging crooked around his neck. It's fucking terrible.

“You can't tie a tie, Bennet?”

“Don't be a dick. My dad died before he got around to teaching me. It's just our thing. I never learned, and she likes doing it for me.”

Goddammit. I immediately feel like an asshole in that specific, stomach-dropping way that only comes from accidentally stepping on someone's dead parent.

“Sorry, man. I didn't think—”

“There she is.”

He's already moving before I can finish my apology, breaking into a jog through the crowd and waving one arm over his head like an idiot.

I watch him go, shaking my head.

Then he reaches her.

When Bennet turns back around with a woman tucked beneath his arm, the air leaves my body in one complete motion, and I don't get another breath.

The world doesn't stop. That would imply some dramatic pause, some cinematic moment where everything freezes around me while my brain catches up.

Oh, it’s so much fucking worse than that.