Remember When ↠ l.p.

Boy troubles

Fifteen minutes later, I've had all I can take. Mother has been talking and talking and while some of the points she's made have made sense...I can't help but feel like she doesn't quite get it. "Thanks for the chat," I tell her, starting to get up from my seat "but I think I'm going to go with my normal reaction and try to ignore it and then come to terms slowly within a couple of days."

"Whoa now," she puts a hand on my shoulder and pulls me to sit down again. "I've talked, but I admit that you've looked uncomfortable the entire time. What's on your mind?" She watches my reaction (very similar to a deer in headlights) and quickly speaks up again, to reassure me. "I promise that you can leave and ignore it for the rest of the day, for however long you need to. First, just please tell me what's on your mind. You'll never believe how much easier things become after you say it aloud."

"I said it aloud last night, didn't I?" I prop my hand beneath my chin and look over at her, yawning as I speak. I nee more coffee if I'm going to make it through today. "Or did you want me to say it outright?"

"Yes, I do. The first step to realizing your in love with someone you maybe shouldn't be or don't want to be is to get past denying it. Trust me, when I first met your father I thought I was crazy. I was convinced he would be bad for me and leave me in a similar situation to your biological father. The thing was...he's one of the two best things that ever happened to me." She smiles at me and rubs my arm comfortingly. "Now, I want to hear you say it as clearly as you can."

I roll my eyes at her and stare at the table in front of us. "I-I think I might love Liam."

Mother claps quietly, since the girls are still sleeping. "Was that so hard?"

I clasp my hands and twiddle my thumbs. "I guess it wasn't, really. I still feel...I just don't know what I feel exactly."

"It's a scary thing, love. You're vulnerable and you feel like you would do anything for that person. Your goals can change. You find yourself thinking about them just as much you think about your own well-being. Love is a risk. When we do love someone though, we're happier and I think we're better people."

"I don't know mother." Is I all I say in response, finally getting up from the table to refill my cup with more coffee. I feel like no one else can know what I'm feeling. They can guess and empathize with certain parts, but who can say they've had a romance spring up among a death and when there have been multiple personalities involved? I feel like mother has just been giving me...general tips. The kind that might apply to everyday romances and couples who fight over who used up the last of the toothpaste or who didn't wash the dishes in the sink. My fights have been for custody of his child and for the man I might love to commit himself to rehab. I just don't think that's normal, nor a good basis for a relationship.

"Well, I suppose I did say that you could leave after you admitted things." She looks a little saddened that I don't seem to have had my mood improved much. I walk back over and put my cup down on the table. Then I wrap my arms around her shoulders and lean my head next to hers. 

"Thank you for talking to me about my man troubles, mother." I kiss the side of her head. "It's debatable whether you're right about everything, but one thing you were surely right about is how much of a mess I am, huh?"

She snorts a little and shakes her head gently. "You're not more of a mess than any of the rest of us are." After a few seconds of silence she adds, "I'm sorry if I wasn't much of a help to you. I just try and impart the wisdom I've learned from Cosmopolitan and my own experiences. I'm sorry if my advice wasn't exactly what you felt you needed right now."

"It's okay," I whisper to her "Even I don't know what I need right now." I pull away and sit down next to her again. I might as well try to gather as much energy as I can and for as long as I can before the girls wake up. Today we're all going out together to the pool and then doing something this afternoon, we're still deciding because the girls couldn't actually agree last night. That was a first. I'm glad that Tessie is beginning to learn to stick up for herself and her desires though, I was worried that she would get bored or miserable if she kept going along with just what Cailyn wanted to do. I shouldn't have worried though, Tessie has become quite vocal about it. 

"Anyway, the one thing that I think we've established is that men are confusing and cause us way too much worry," I grin at my mother, already trying to block out both of the L words from my memory.

Love. Liam. Love. Liam. 

Dedicated to fanninfannin, thank you for the votes!!