Detention (Boyxboy)

chapter 15

There was a knock at the door...my mother. I didn't realize that she had come home. I'd been so caught up in my thoughts of Chris and Luke, that everything around me faded and disappeared. But the sound of her voice brought me back to reality. I wished she had just left me alone, so I could be peacefully miserable with my thoughts. "Brandon, are you in here?"

I thought about being quiet, hoping that she would think I was gone and wouldn't bother me. But even still, she would've opened the door and come into my room anyway. There was really no escaping her. "Yeah," I said. "Come in."

My mother walked in. She stood by the doorway as though she didn't want to come next to me, as though there was something wrong with me. Maybe there was something wrong with me. "You don't look too good," she told me.

"I don't feel too good," I answered.

"Well, I would ask if you want to talk about it, but knowing you, you wouldn't tell me anyway."

A part of me was offended by her statement. Yet she was right. It was rare for me to ever confide in her about anything. "You wouldn't understand," I said.

"I can probably understand more than you think I can," she responded. My mother took a step toward my bed. My sheets still had Luke's strong body scent on it; I'm surprised she wasn't able to smell it when she first walked in. 'Tell me something," she said. "Anything. I want to know what's going on with you."

"Do you really?" I asked cynically. I could tell that she was genuinely trying to make an effort to talk to me, but I felt really awkward, like a stranger was in my room.

"I know what's upsetting you," my mother told me. She sat at the edge of my bed. My heart fluttered. "It's that boy," she said.

I wanted to say 'Which one?' I didn't say anything. I stayed quiet and waited for her to continue.

"What happened?" She asked.

I stared out my bedroom window, into the darkness. I remembered lying in bed, naked, with Chris by my side under the covers, looking out the window, into nights full of passion and possibility. Yet when I looked out the window now, all I saw was a cold black night, full of disappointment. "What do you mean what happened?"

"Between you and that boy...what's his name again?"
"Chris. We got into a fight a while ago."

"Over what?"

"A lot of stupid things," I said. I tried not to remember all the hurtful things Chris had told me in the park that night when he broke up with me, but I couldn't. His words kept repeating themselves in my mind over and over again. My head pounded.

For a while, my mother was silent, and then she asked, more of a statement than a question, "You really care about this boy, don't you?"

I stared at the ground. "I don't know how I feel anymore..."

"I think you do," My mother said, "I just think you're afraid to admit to yourself how you really feel about him."

"What do you care anyway?" I said, a bit too bitterly. "It wasn't like you liked him in the first place. I thought you would be glad I'm not seeing him."

My mother looked out the window with me. "Not if it means you're this unhappy," she said to me. "I can tell that he meant a lot to you. I can tell that he still means a lot to you. Rather you want to admit it or not."

I really didn't want to talk about Chris, especially with my mother. However I knew that at some point I would have to address it. I couldn't keep it locked up inside my mind forever without sinking more and more into depression. "It would be easier if I could hate him," I told her. "I just wish that I hated him. Even better, I wish I didn't feel anything for him.