His Words (bxb)

chapter thirty-two

Monday, November 23, 2020

✧elijah✧

"I'm off to school, Mom," I shout out from the foyer to where I know my mom is sat in the kitchen. This weekend has been... awkward, to say the least. I spent the majority of it in my room since Aidan came over. I have nothing against the man. Honestly, he seems great. But he also seems like someone my mother is trying to replace Dad with.

"Honey, can I speak to you for a moment?" Mom calls back. I take a deep breath, take my backpack off and leave it near the front door and make my way into the kitchen. My mom is sat at the kitchen table and she nods towards the seat across from her. I sit down in it.

"You've been acting weird this weekend," she states matter-of-factly. "I know it's partially my fault. I shouldn't have invited Aidan over for the weekend without asking you about it first. This is your home, too, and you shouldn't have to feel uncomfortable in it."

After a long moment of silence, I finally decide that I can't postpone this conversation any longer. "It's bigger than that, Mom," I say. This takes her by surprise.

"It's not about Aidan staying over, it's just about Aidan. It's about Dad, too." My voice lowers to a wobbly whisper as I say the last sentence.

I hear Mom sigh deeply, tiredly. "Lij, I know that it might be hard for you to witness Aidan become a new father figure to you and the girls, but can you try to look at the positives here?"

"The positives are that Dad died nine months ago and someone else has already found a place in our family," I retort, the situation starting to anger me.

"I know, Lij, but please think of it from my point of view. I've been doing everything alone for the past nine months. I have no adult person in my life that I can talk to and share my troubles with and who can support me. I have had no one for nine months, Elijah." I freeze when I hear her voice crack. Please don't cry. "I was constantly tired, especially after we moved here. Everything felt so hopeless. And now I finally have someone in my life who gives me strength and helps me live a normal life again and I can't get the support of the one person who means the most to me?"

"And you're sure that would be me?" I ask sarcastically.

"I love you more than anything, Elijah-"

"Isn't that the same thing you told Dad?"

"HE OFFED HIMSELF, ELIJAH!" My mother's loud shrieks throw me off guard. My mother must have felt the same because she takes a few deep breaths before speaking again. "He offed himself and left me with three children to raise on my own and a house I couldn't even afford with my job! I understand he was in pain, but when you have a family, you have to take responsibility for it. I hate him for not talking to me, his wife, a therapist, about it. I hate him for making his own children have to witness it. I hate him for leaving me alone in this world," she says and each word is like a knife to my heart.

For a few minutes, I am too stunned to say anything. "Elijah, sweetie," my mom says reaching her hand across the table to hold mine. "It's not the Becketts against the rest of the world and all the men in it. I genuinely don't see how my relationship with Aidan is harming anyone."

"If we were such a burden, why couldn't you just do what Noah's mom did?" With that being said, I stand up and head out the door, grabbing my backpack on my way out. I ignore my mother as she calls out my name.

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- half an hour later -