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‘This is also your last visit, so enjoy it while you can.’
‘He’s here,’ Dax says, a moment too late, scrunching his nose in disgust. Bro-code rules; we hate who the other hates. ‘Got any cameras on you? You may need this recorded to remember it because you look like you’re about to black out.’
Please, for the love of everything holy, let me black out. I breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth, ready to explode.
‘Riv!’ Mom greets me happily. ‘What do you think of this one?’ she asks, motioning to the dress she’s wearing that hits her high enough above the knees that a public school would send her home to change. ‘For Hollyn’s wedding. Doesn’t it just scream mother of the bride?’
Dax lifts a single eyebrow, shaking his head behind her back, obviously not on board.
‘Veto,’ I say. ‘It screams prom, 1985. Can I, uh, talk to you?’ I ask, grabbing her hand and dragging her upstairs to my old bedroom, which still looks exactly as it did the day I graduated – Britney Spears poster on the ceiling over the bed and everything.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask, nearly boiling over inside.
‘Preparing dinner, what are you doing?’
I pace, my hands in my hair as I walk back and forth in front of my trophy shelf, all my baseball awards from childhood still looking shiny and brand new as if I just got them yesterday.
‘I’m trying to figure out why you would intervene like this. You realize I’m a grown man, right?’
‘Obviously. I gave birth to you, and I remember it like it was yesterday despite it being almost thirty years ago. You were such a cute bald baby. It was one of the best days of my life.’
One of the best days of her life, and now she’s trying to kill me. ‘Why’s Caitlin here? And why the fuck would you let Derek in this house?’
She sighs, sitting on my bed and crossing her legs. ‘You can’t hate them forever,’ she says. ‘You’re getting married; shouldn’t you go into that knowing everything with your past has been resolved? Instead of holding all this bitterness in your heart?’
‘Ugh,’ I groan, dropping down in my old computer chair and leaning back. ‘Mom, I’m not getting married. Jade and I are not engaged. It was just a ruse to get rid of Caitlin one night when we unexpectedly ran into her. Jade and I aren’t even dating. In fact, she’s getting married to someone else.’
Her shoulders drop like this is a huge disappointment to her. ‘She already has a husband? River! We do not date taken girls.’
‘Mom, I know this. It’s exactly why we aren’t dating.’
‘Then why did she make up a story about a ring?’
‘Because she saw your disappointment, was overly starstruck, and wanted you to like her.’
‘That’s cute, but still, she lied. You don’t want a woman who lies to your mother, do you?’
‘She lied because she’s having a rough time right now. Her fiancé isn’t who she thought he was. She recently lost her mother to cancer. And when she discovered you were my mom, it brought back memories of her own mom, who was some kind of super fan of yours back in the day.’
I feel like I’m twelve years old and in trouble for smoking behind the bleachers during lunch again. That argument was heated to the point Dad wanted to make me smoke an entire pack to teach me a lesson. The first one made me sick, so why would I want a whole pack? It’s not like I did drugs. Every kid tries smoking, and I hated it, so lesson learned.
‘How can she already be engaged and not wear a ring? That’s the most exciting part!’
Of course she’d be stuck on that.
‘Because the tool never gave her one.’
I almost died when she pulled that ring advertisement from her ex box recently. Not because I was surprised she had a photo of her perfect ring, but because it’s the exact ring still sitting in the bottom drawer of the desk I’m sitting in front of that I bought for Caitlin. The planet has a million engagement ring styles; how could she have chosen that one?
There’s a knock on the door frame, and Mom and I jerk our heads in that direction. Thank God, it’s my father.
‘Everything alright in here?’ he asks softly.
‘No. Mom’s on crack,’ I say, glaring her way.
‘I am not on crack,’ she snaps back. ‘You told me you were engaged.’
‘But I didn’t. The woman I never wanted to see again, who is now sitting downstairs with her happy little family, that fucked me over in front of everyone I know, did. Do you not remember what she did to me?’
