Past The Mistakes

14.5 | kayden and gloria

"Why push me so close to the edge only to reign me back?"

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KAYDEN

I DON'T know how to she managed to do it but she did. 

She managed to ruin a perfectly good dinner with unnecessary comments. All that did was prove to me that she would rather talk about me with literally anyone and everyone other than me - the person she actually had a problem with. Her very own son. 

Gloria. My mother.

She managed to mess up Friday's dinner before Thomas, Marie, and Richard had to salvage what was left of the atmosphere to start up a conversation. She was so humiliating sometimes.

The silence was bleeding, staining the faces of everyone on the table in its blood. 

But, being with Carino helped me forget it all. Forget all about my sad, disappointing life to just live in the peace of the moment.

What peace did I know before? Drunken bliss?

Being with Layla was so easy. She was so easy in the fact that I didn't need to pretend with her. I didn't need to live up to impractical expectations or anything. It was easy because I could truly be myself.

She didn't expect anything from me.

Even if I tried to pretend - pretend to be alright - she would see right through it. See right through my smile and right into the cracks in my heart. It scared, yet, excited the fuck out of me.

With Layla it was real; it was never pretend.

I looked down at her, watching her as she stared up at the night sky.

No matter what happened, or who happened, this is where we ended up. Here, staring up at the comforting night sky underneath a blanket of twinkling stars.

She loved this. I was sure she was going crazy for the stars, loving how unnaturally dark it had become with the sky being pitch-black only illuminated by the stars dotted in oblivion.

It was a matter of time before she started naming every constellation she could see or started telling me about another Coraline conspiracy theory.

I thought it was cute.

"Kayden," she muttered, her head still resting on my shoulder giving me peace and comfort that I couldn't find anywhere else besides with her.

"Hm?" I hummed.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

My heart freezes in my chest and my mind wanders back to Friday night.

That scene she pulled at Friday's dinner was an obvious stunt. She knew what she was doing and it made it harder for me to feel sympathy for her. She wanted to put on that caring mother act to mask up for the years of neglect and pressure.

My mother hadn't talked to me after we got home which was unusual for her. Usually, she would love chatting up a storm about how I was failing to live up to what expectations she had for me. It would be that or just complaints in general about where I was, what I was doing, or who I was doing. Absurd.

She had just dismissed herself for bed, leaving me in the curse of my own company. But I didn't want that because I could feel her sadness radiate from past her bedroom doors and I didn't want to see her brooding in the darkness, consumed by her own negative thoughts. She sometimes had that in common.