HeartBreaker | Book 1

Mother

Chapter Twenty-Six

Mother

Time stands still and it's as if we are frozen.

Forced to stare at each other in disbelief.

I feel everything, yet nothing at the same time.

It feels like I've stepped back in time, or into the deepest depths of my mind and stumbled into a memory.

I stare at the woman. At my mother.

I stare at her icey blue eyes and her white-blonde hair she passed on to me.

She looked... better, healthier than the last time I saw her. Her face is warm and soft and her hair shone underneath the ceiling light.

She isn't as hideous as I remember.

But can you blame me?

The last time I laid my eyes on my mother, years ago, she was battling an addiction, she had paper-thin skin, sunken red eyes, bald patches all over her head and constant bruises all over her body.

Oh how time has change... how she has changed.

The woman I used to call 'mum' is sitting right in front of me. After so many years of drowning out her memory, now to have her here, sitting right in front of me, looking exactly the way I used to dream she would; is a lot to take in.

She looks well, better than well actually; my shabby apartment doesn't suit her neat attire of a pantsuit and trench coat.

Her shoes look cleaner than my walls, if I'm honest.

"Chris..." she says softly, tears building in her eyes, "oh Chris."

Hearing her voice again brought goose bumps to my arms, the sound of her voice was something I thought I'd forgotten.

I snap back into reality for the first time in about five minutes and I walk slowly towards the stool and take a seat, not taking my eyes off her.

I try to speak, but I fail. I have so many questions, each as urgent as the next.

"You look... so beautiful," she breathes searching my face and trying to move in closer.

"You've grown into such a fine young man," she sniffles,

"And you had no part in it," I snap, rather rudely.

As she stares at me guiltily, I process my emotions that are getting stronger by the minute, disbelief manifests into anger as the reality of the situation suddenly becomes clearer.

"I tried... so hard for so many years, I looked for you everywhere, but I couldn't find you considering you changed your last name-"

"You didn't find me, because I didn't want to be found by you!" I spit.

"Chris please-"

"No, I-I don't want to hear it; don't act like you care, you never did,"

"Chris you don't know that-"

"Yes I do and do you want to know how?!" I ask staring her down.

"I have never risked losing anything that I care about... not even my job... and I was your son," my voice breaks and I ball my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

"Chris please, if you could find it in the beautiful heart that I know you have, to hear me out..."

I think about Desirae and how she managed to forgive Janine who was responsible for the death of her parents.

I think for a moment.

I stare at her wordlessly, my eyes piercing through hers trying to find it, in my heart to forgive her.

Then I realise that I'm not Desirae, and I don't have a heart to forgive.

Every second I stare at her pathetic self, I get more and more infuriated.

"Get. Out." I spit with every trace of complete and utter malice in my voice.

"Christopher, please," she begs, only igniting the hatred I have in my heart for what she let happen to my baby sister, Madison.

I see red. I see my little sister. And I see the woman before me, letting her die.

"GET OUT, GET! OUT!" I roar at the top of my lungs.

She grabs her handbag and leaves my apartment quietly sobbing with her chin to her chest.

I walk behind her and slam my door shut and lock it.

I put my back against the door trying to calm myself down as my chest rises and falls.

I've never felt rage, hurt, anger and misery like this before.

I slide my back down the door until I'm sitting on the floor of my cold apartment.

It's all too much. The weight of everything is crushing me.

I let cries of misery escape me.

It's all too overwhelming. Why do the people I love, leave me and the people who are supposed to love me, hurt me?

I may not deserve good things, but I know I don't deserve pain like this.