Like My Mother

Chapter Eleven

I sigh into the grass and watch it as it shivers. The sun is getting a little less hot now and the sky is bleeding purple and orange. I search my brain for a beginning of the beginning.

The beginning of the end.

James picks at the blades of grass and begins to whistle a bit of a song.

I just can't decide where to start.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." James says looking at me.

"No I do it's just...don't know exactly where to start."

"Well let me ask you a question."

"Ok." I reply as James turns over on his back. He looks up at me and I find myself trying to resist to not look down at his lower region.

"So. What is your sister's name again."

"Syrie, she's 11."

"And do you like her?"

"Hardly. I mean I try to, she is my sister, but she just...she's a bitch!" James looks at me surprised yet understanding. "Mom has just always seemed to like her more. I mean I don't want to sound cliche but she really does. And then Syrie is like a mini mom and it pisses me the fuck off!"  I punch the ground in fury and I feel James' warm hand rub my back.

"It's ok. Every parent makes mistakes. But why does she favor Syrie?" James says as he leans on his side and props his head on his fist. His other hand never leaves my back.

"I don't know. I guess...Syrie's father came with least heartache."

"What do you mean?"

 "Syrie's dad was a one night stand. Mom doesn't even know who he is, she says she thinks it happened at one of these rush parties that she used to go to. You know the ones that you have to take ecstasy to get in the door?"

James nods.

"Yea and apparently she had sex...several times...and then several weeks later she was pregnant."

 "So Syrie was an accident?" James asks chuckling.

"No, Syrie was a mistake." I laugh, so does James.

"So I guess your dad wasn't a one night stand?" he says.

"No, my parents were actually married. My mom was actually once a good mother, our house was a nice place. It was old but my dad had been working on it and had it all nice and fixed up. And then when I was about 4, they started fighting. I guess the realization that my mom's bachelorette life was over and that she had a family was too much for her and she kept sneaking out to party and drink like a wild 16-year old. And then one day my dad just takes off. No warning, we wake up and he's gone. He took his car, his belongings, all of his money and left without a trace. After that my mom just went completely downhill, she would leave me at the house all by myself and would go party. Sometimes literally for days, she scared me. I was only 5 years old when she got pregnant for Syrie, and then it was pretty much a different boyfriend every week, they would come to the house and drink and smoke and sometimes have sex right in front of Syrie and I. Back then we got along pretty good, which she was only about a year old, and then she got older. We all got older and about the only one that didn't change was Mom. For some reason I guess, mom blames me for dad leaving, but how could I? I wanted him to stay just as much as she did." I quickly wipe away a tear before it slides down my face and we both sit there in silence for a minute.

James coughs to himself and then scoots a little closer to me, he wraps his arm around me and pulls me into a hug. He ends rolling back over on his back with my head landing on his chest. We just lay there and watch the sun as it gets closer and closer to the landscape. I drift away in thought and forget that I'm lying under the sun, naked, with a guy I hardly know. He's seen more of me than my naked skin, he knows the crimson behind my scarlet letter. He knows the reasons why I hate myself, and he's still here. He's still holding me, and he still cares.