Page 135 of Just for the Cameras
Please don’t say that. I am your son.
I press my lips together to stop them from quivering as pain ricochets through me, battering me from the inside out.
Please don’t do this, Mom.
Please.
“Graydon, you should probably go,” Rhonda says, causing my mom to whirl around on her.
“Do not call him that. That is not my son!” she shouts, thrashing herarm around and knocking her painting over. “He’s not…wh-what? Where am I?” She looks around frantically, her terrified expression threatening to break me. “Why am I here? Get me out of here. I want my family. I want my baby boy. Where is he? Why are you keeping him from me?”
I beg the universe for her to see me, for her to look me in the eyes, to recognize me as the boy I once was, and as I stand, with just a smidge of hope hanging on, I take a step forward, keeping my voice quiet. “Mom, it’s me.”
Her eyes snap to mine, and I hold still, waiting, praying.
Please recognize me, Mom.
Please.
Her shaky hand releases from her mouth, and a flash of hope races through me as I keep my gaze on hers, begging for her to notice her eyes in mine. Begging for her to have some clarity. I’m so fixated on letting her see me as the boy she once knew that I don’t notice her pick up her water glass and, with a flick of her wrist, chuck it at me, hitting me directly in the corner of my right eye, sending me backward.
The glass crashes to the floor, and she screams before running off.
She doesn’t get far, though, as nurses surround her and pin her to the ground.
Blood drips down my face as I call out, “Don’t hurt her. Please don’t fucking hurt her.”
I watch as my mom struggles against the nurses, screaming for me, screaming forher boy, but not for the man standing a few feet away from her.
And as I stand there, blood dripping down my face, tears falling, my mom yells, writhes, and does everything in her power to be released before they sedate her.
Her body becomes lifeless, her head pressed into the floor, her cardigan hanging off her shoulder as the faint stains of tears still mar hercheeks. And that empty feeling that constantly takes up space in my chest grows. It grows and fills with sorrow and anger.
Hatred.
A distinct disdain for every circumstance that has brought my mother to this moment.
Rhonda comes up to me, presses her hand to my back, and whispers, “I’m so sorry, Graydon.”
I wipe at my eyes and just nod, because what the hell am I supposed to say?
There’s nothing to say other than…I’m fucking gutted.
“Fuck,” I grumble as I lock my door, exhaustion overcoming me from a rough night and having to wake up early for another week of training camp. Even though this week won’t be as harsh as the first three, it’s still the drain of the day taking its toll on a body that’s already goddamn weak.
I didn’t sleep at all last night. Maybe half an hour if I’m lucky, because every time I shut my eyes, all I could see was my mom on the ground screaming for help…help that I couldn’t give her.
And it haunts me.
The terror in her eyes.
The tears staining her cheeks.
Her cries were so harsh that her voice broke.
I just…fuck, I can’t.
I scrub my hand over my face and get in my truck, pain blanketing me like a dark cloud, tempting me to do something stupid, tempting me to lessen the anguish gripping my heart and squeezing it so goddamn tight that it feels like I can’t breathe.
