Page 134 of Just for the Cameras
Willing the embarrassment and tears not to take over, I let out a deep breath and text him back.
Maple:Cool, yeah, I was thinking about doing my own brunch anyway. Got some fresh strawberries that I need to cut up.
Fresh strawberries? Why?
That’s such a stupid thing to say.
And he must think it too because he doesn’t text back right away. Every second that ticks by, I feel more and more embarrassed.
He jokes around about a topless pic, and I take that as free rein to ask him out? What is wrong with me?
I set my phone down and stare blankly at the TV, Adam Sandler’s voice barely registering as tears spring to my eyes from humiliation. After a few more minutes, my phone finally buzzes, and I hate that I’m so quick to pick it up.
Graydon:Bennett just hit a two-run home run.
Okay, we’re just going to skirt right around the awkward situation of me asking him out and him rejecting me. That’s cool. I’m good with that.
Maple:Cool. Adam Sandler just helped an underage drinker puke into a dumpster.
Graydon:Umm…okay.
I groan and then toss my phone again.
Yup, I’m done for the night.
CHAPTER 25
GRAYDON
“Please, just…just leave mealone,” Mom says as her eyes glaze over. Her words slice me in two, tearing at the scars that have barely healed from the last time she didn’t recognize me.
Sitting next to her, attempting to share space while painting like I’ve done in the past, there is something different about this visit, as if there isn’t an ounce of clarity in her eyes.
And like every other time she doesn’t recognize me, it feels like life is driving a goddamn dagger right into my soul, carving out a piece of it that will never grow back.
My hopes were too high after last week’s visit. I thought if we replayed everything that we did last time, we’d get the same result, but I was so wrong. My mom’s brain just doesn’t work like that. And even when you get through to her, it doesn’t mean the next time will be the same. It’s devastating. And it reminds me of how much I lost all those years ago. How alone I feel.
I glance toward Rhonda, begging for any sort of help, but she just offers me a sad smile, because we know where this is going. We know we can’t do anything to stop it.
When she didn’t recognize me and didn’t connect the dots of who I was, I decided to just sit next to her and paint. At least I could be in her presence, which was better than nothing, but with every stroke I made on the canvas I’ve been working on for weeks every Sunday, she scootedher chair farther and farther away while moving her easel, as if I were a complete and total stranger.
Not just a stranger, but someone who scared her.
“Mom,” I say quietly, forgetting to call her by her first name.
“Don’t call me that!” she shouts and then stands from her chair as she clutches at her cardigan. “You’re not my son.” She picks up her paintbrush and throws it at me in horror. “You’re not him.”
The paintbrush splatters across my shirt, coating me in dark green paint as she backs up, tears forming in her eyes. My heart crumbles, shattering into a thousand pieces.She’s so scared of me.
I want to reach out to her, take her hand, soothe her.
Hell, I want her to pull me intoherarms, rubmyback, kissmycheek, and soothe me like she used to so many years ago.
I want all of this to be different. I want my fucking mom back. I don’t want to be grieving the loss of her as she stands, breathing, with a goddamn heartbeat right in front of me.
But with a cruel twist of fate, not only was my mom taken away from me but she’s still on this earth in her full form. It’s the worst kind of torture, knowing I could still embrace her after her accident, but also knowing that the chances of being held tightly by her are slipping further and further away as her memory grows worse and I grow older.
A shaky hand covers her mouth as she says, “I want him gone. I want this sick man gone. How cruel of you to try to act like my son.”
