Page 15 of Tell Me I'm Enough

The tux feels too tight, and I hate the way it makes me feel. My skin has been crawling all day. I feel on edge, and nothing has helped me feel settled.

How is everyone so okay with all of this?

Why does nobody care?

The church is huge. It smells like fresh flowers and the faint bile from my own disgust. Every seat is filled, and I’m standing up here staring at hundreds of people I’ve never even met before.

Who even knows this many people?

I’ve put up a fight about this day ever since I found out it was going to happen six months ago…six months after we put my mom in the ground.

I hate him. I hate that I’m stuck with him. I hate that my mom’s death forced him to be around more than he used to be. That is, until he found someone new to take over—toreplacemy mom.

Maybe from a stranger’s point of view, you’d think my dad is actually in love with Rose—one of his employees—cliché, I know—but I don’t think he’s capable of loving anyone. He never loved my mom. Hedefinitelydoesn’t love me—his only child. So how could he love this new woman? I’m not buying it. He’s going to marry her, dump me on her, and then go back to business as usual.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and look up to see my dad smiling down at me. To everyone else, it will just look like a sweet moment between a dad and his son on his wedding day, but it’s not sweet; it’s his silent reminder for me to behave today.

He doesn’t even remember what today is…or maybe he does and just doesn’t care. He hasn’t mentioned my momoncesince the day of her funeral. Do you know what it feels like to grieve someone when nobody else around you cares or talks about them? It sucks. It hurts. It makes this anger inside me grow, and I don’t know what to do with it sometimes. I feel like I’m going to explode most days.

The organ starts to play, and my dad’s hand squeezes my shoulder before he turns back to his spot as we both watch the church doors open. Rose stands there, smiling with her arm locked with her father’s. He looks like a good guy. I’ve only met him a handful of times, and he seems nice…but looks can always be deceiving.

Rose is younger than my dad, but still old enough that she doesn’t look like my sister. At least he wasn’tthatcliché. She’s wearing a long white dress with lace sleeves and a veil that goes all the way down to the ground. She’s a beautiful woman, sure,but she’s not my mom. My mom was angelic. Nobody will ever be her. Nobody can replace her.

As nice as Rose seems, I still don’t like her. It’s obvious that my dad wants to replace my mom, and she’s more than willing to step right into her spot.

When I look back at my dad, my stomach churns. The way he looks at her…I never saw him look at my mom that way.

Does he actually love her?

No…I don’t think he knows how to…with anyone. I mean, if he could love her and not his own son…what does that say? Did he just hate my mom and me that much?

She makes her way down the aisle, and when they get to the front, her father gives her away, and she walks up to stand with my dad.

As the preacher walks them through the ceremony and vows, my mind starts to drift, going far away from this place, far away from this moment I don’t want to be in.

It’s been a whole year without my mom, and it hasn’t gotten any easier. I woke up this morning with such a deep pain in my head that I didn’t even know was possible to feel. It still doesn’t make sense. I still feel like I’ll wake up to the sound of her voice again. Sometimes I even wake up, thinking I smell pancakes, and my brain flies on autopilot to the kitchen looking for her. She’s never there, and it crushes me all over again every time my mind plays these tricks on me.

Sometimes I think I see her in a crowd and can’t stop staring until the face comes into focus and I realize it’s not her, until I remember it’ll never be her face. I’ll never sit with her during a rainy day on the back porch and do one of our puzzles together again. I’ll never have someone beside me who believes in me more than I believe in myself. I’ll never have anyone else who loves me the way she did.

I hate life without her.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I had another parent who loved me the same way she did, a parent who tried to comfort me and make sure I was okay. But no, I got stuck with a heartless father who never once asked how I was doing after she died.

His solution was to just clear out all her stuff a week after the funeral. He hired a crew to get rid of it all. It was the first time I’ve ever tried to physically fight my dad—and I doubt it’ll be the last.

I walked downstairs that morning to see him telling the movers what things to take and pack into each box. I instantly ran over and ripped one of them away from some guy, making the box fly onto the floor—picture frames of her, and of us—all shattering to the ground.

My dad came up behind me and jerked me to face him, telling me to stop, but I couldn’t see anything past the pain he was causing. I just let my fist do all the talking that I couldn’t. I didn’t stop until he had me pinned down on the floor, his elbow between my shoulder blades with so much force that I finally broke and stopped fighting. All I could do was cry and ask him why. He didn’t even answer, just lifted me back up and told me he didn’t want to see me for the rest of the day.

The sound of clapping from the crowd pulls me back out of the memory, and I turn to look as my dad dips Rose and kisses her. Flashes go off everywhere, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach.

I feel so numb today.

I just want this all to be over. I want to go home—to a house that doesn’t even feel like home anymore.

* * *

Everyone is dancing, laughing, and drinking.