Because of You, Well, Us

Chase

I thought I had hope. I thought Kate would like what I did. I thought she would like the fact that I tried to grow up over the summer. I thought she would like me trying to kiss her. I thought she would like me showing how much I cared for her. Maybe I didn't do something right. Could I have ended up a bad kisser? Or maybe I hadn't given her enough time. I had seemed a bit pushy.

Then I had sent that text. The look in her face as she read it, and this stabbing feeling came over me. Her face almost looked as if she hated it and hated me, and the blame came over me. I'd given her so much to digest, wanting to chance our relationship that had felt so solid for so many years, kissing her, and not a lot of time to digest it.

Then again, she had done a fair amount of misleading as well. Ever since the night she came home she had given me a lot to make me think the way I did. Falling asleep on me. But I had half-slept with her, and kissed her. Touched her in some not-just-friends ways. Everything she had done in the hospital. But still, I had been the one who kissed her and said all of those things.

This girl had me going round and round. Even though I had considered her my friend, part of me wondered if I would end up better off without her. We just caused the other more pain, never a great relationship.

A knock on the door, interrupting my thoughts. My mom poked her head in a second later.

"Hey, I thought I heard you-" She stopped herself short. My mom worked as a shrink, and could always tell when something felt off with me.

Waking across my room to me, she started rubbing my back.

"What's wrong, Sticky?" Sticky had became my nickname during childhood when I played goalie.

"It's stuff with Kate, mom. You know how much she means to me. And I made the mistake of acting on it." Some may've considered talking to their parents like this as weird, but my dad tended to travel for work, so she and I talked.

Her face went pale, and she sat on the bed across from my chair and put a hand on my knee. "Don't tell me... please don't say that... that you slept with Kate? Please don't let that be the case."

I sputtered in disbelief and sat next to her. "No way mom. I kissed her. And, well, you know what you saw at the hospital, and heard last night."

Mom reached to stroke my face, but pulled away. "Ow." She said, "You're shaving today." She laughed. She had a great laugh. I can see why my dad fell for her, in that odd kind of way.

In the end, she resorted to my hair "Give her time. Lots and lots of time. In fact, wait for her to come talk to you. And just know that I love you, Kate choosing you or not." With a quick peck on the forehead, my mom was gone.

Now do you see why I love my mommy so much?