Visions Of Us

22 | The Big It

JULIA

My phone started ringing as soon as we got into the cab. Rory was oddly quiet and looked pretty spaced out as I reached for my phone that lay in my pocket. My eyes rolled at the contact. Mom. I wondered what she wanted. If she was drunk and was already sprawled out on the couch with a bottle in her hand. The last thought in her mind was that maybe her daughter wasn't in her bedroom or in New Haven at all. After that dinner and heart to heart, I didn't know how to feel about us. Just out of the blue, she wants to be my mother again? Even thinking about the woman was a mindfuck.

"Hey mom"

"Hey baby", a lazy drawl and a drunken giggle later followed. "Are you in New York right now?" The sounds of booming music, glasses clinking and loud conversation served as background noise. Great, she's at a bar.

"Yeah. Why do you ask?" I asked, resting my head on the window that revealed the exciting city lights and uptown streets.

"Well, since you were leaving for New York. I thought I would come to your father's place in Hartford, y'know? Maybe patch things up between us. However, when I knocked on his door, some brown woman opened it. Ugh, Julia, I'm telling you the nerve she had to ask me to leave was shocking and so rude. I mean, James should be knowing better than to be sleeping with some gold digger. She looked so smug in her little silk bathrobe that she had on. The little bitch"

"Wait, you didn't know that dad was sleeping with someone else before you guys got divorced?" I asked her, but I almost immediately regreted even saying it. A deep sense of dread washed over me when I replayed the moment he told me about her.

"Well...", He ran his hand through his gelled back hair "I've found another woman and I've been getting to know her"

"Does mom know?" I asked, no emotion behind my voice.

"No and I would really appreciate that you don't tell her you know how . . . . sensitive she is"

God. How could I have forgotten so easily? I wasn't supposed to tell this her but now she knows. She knows that I was told about it and I didn't say a word to her on the matter. Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes as I felt the weight of a hundred bricks on my shoulders. This is the one time I get to enjoy myself outside of New Haven and . . . this just had to happen.

"You knew about her?!" she exclaimed, a tone of despair and betrayal in her voice. "And you didn't tell me."

"Mom -" I pleaded, but I was quickly cut off.

"Save it. You all don't deserve me. Fuck you, your dad and this whole fuckin family! I'm done." she spits out with so much bite in her words, letting  all her anger and frustration out on me. It almost seems as if she has been wanting to say it since forever. My mother ends the call with that dramatic monologue. Finally, getting the last word.

What have I done? I smothered my face with my hand, releasing a huge sigh of frustration as my head hit the cushioned seat. I'm in New York with my gorgeous girlfriend. I should be having fun and making the most of it, but here I am worrying about my pathetic mother. Sorry, scratch that. My pathetic parents. I hate my dad for cheating and sleeping with some other woman when he had a wife at home and a daughter to think and care about. I hate my mom for acting like an angel and for defending my father when I used to argue with him. But above all, I hate myself for being the product of their past love.

"Are you okay?" Rory asked, a caring hand on my knee.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I put her hand back in her lap, and a hurt expression took over her face. I felt so bad inside for being the cause of such a pretty face looking so sad. I couldn't tell her once again that I was going through something. I mean who wants to stay with someone who just vents all the time? Someone who can't afford to live in the present.