Page 78 of Fall For Me
“Nobody but himself,” I correct her.
“Oh, he’s a walking red flag for sure, but I like a man who goes after what he wants. I approve. He reminds me a lot of your dad.”
“He’s nothing like Dad,” I argue.
“Oh-ho-ho. You didn’t know your dad in college. Your father and Sean are more similar than you think. Luke was quite the ladies' man. I was not the girl for that shit. Nuh-uh. Every time he asked me out, I pretty much told him to goto hell. We didn’t have cell phones back then with all the location sharing and stuff there is now, but that man somehow found a way to track me down like a bloodhound. He wasn’t in any of my classes, but he sure blew into every single one of them like he was . . . plopping himself in the seat next to me, staring at the side of my head, and tapping that damn pen on the desk. Tap-tap-tap. Annoyed the hell out of me until I finally agreed to go out with him. He didn’t approve of Sean because he sees a lot of himself in him.”
“No way. I never knew any of that.”
“Yeah, well. He’d never tell you any of that,” Mom counters.
We sit in comfortable silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts, looking out into the distance. Sometimes you need to just be still in the moment, and right here with my mom is what I needed more than anything.
“You haven’t been happy,” she says, and I turn my head, raising a brow.
“Did you forget why we’re here? The one thing I want, I can’t have.”
“Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the logistics of things that we forget to use logic.”
“What does even that mean?”
“It means find another way, Hannah. You’re so stuck in the ‘whyyou can’t’ that you’re forgetting the ‘howyou can’.”
“Like what? Adopt a pet? Become a dog mom?”
She chuckles under her breath. “That wasn’t quite what I was thinking, but sure, you can start there. Maybe shifting your attention to something else will help pull you out of this funk.”
I close my eyes to blink, and when they flash back open, we’re sitting in the darkened stands of the hockey arena. “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper plays quietly in the background as disco lights flash across the ice in sync with the beat, illuminating Mom’s face in blue, purple, then red.
“How’d you do that?” I ask in astonishment.
“I didn’t. You did. I go wherever you take me. I wonder why you brought me here?”
I look back at the ice, knowing exactly why I brought her here. I just don’t want to admit it.
“I hate to tell you this, but it’s time for me to go,” Mom says.
My heart crashes against my ribs. Panic stirs in my gut. I don’t want her to go. “But we just got here.”
“Time works differently in this space, my sweet girl, and they’re waking you up. Listen to me. Say yes . . .”
“Say yes to what, Mom?”
“Just say yes, and stop doubting yourself,” she says and begins to fade away. “I love you, sweetheart.”
The warmth of her skin leaves mine, and the seats on the other side of her come into focus as she disappears. I scramble to my feet, turning around in place to look for her.
“Mom . . . Mom?” A warm wet tear drips down my cheek. “Mom . . . please don’t go, I-I need you.”
“I’m always with you . . .” Her voice echoes around me.
Sean
“I want my mom!” Hannah screams at the top of her lungs as Coach and I round the doorway to her recovery room. “Mom? Mommy, come back! Please!”
The entire scene is a shit show. Two nurses hold Hannah’s arms down while she thrashes around, and my blood instantly boils.
Oh, hell fucking no.
