How to be Forever Alone [#Wattys2020]

29.

I don't think my mom expected me to actually come in the house, because as soon as she saw me she stood up and quickly came towards me.

"Claire," she called out.

Those few seconds allowed everything to sink into my brain.

I couldn't believe it! Something inside me just made we want to yell at the top of my lungs, but instead, I sprinted for my room up the staircase, not even paying attention to anything in my line of view. Especially that stupid antique chair my mom had me help carry into the house less than a week ago.

I could hear my moms swift deep footsteps following behind me up the old rickety stairs covered in a long strip of a red ornate rug. At some point, she must have bumped into the wall coming up because I could only cover my ears as a loud crash of shattering glass tumbled like a waterfall down to the ground floor.

Nothing could stop me as I slammed my bedroom door behind me.

She wasn't quick enough to catch me.

"Claire, open the door." my mom pleads with me.

I debated not saying anything, but I wasn't sure I could hold all my feelings in.

"No!" I yell back.

I prop myself against my poorly painted white door and slide down until I'm sitting on my bedroom floor.

"Sweetheart, please-" she tries to say before I cut her off.

Just as loudly as before, I say, "I don't want to hear it!"

A half hour ago, she was ready to rip my throat out for having left her, but now that I've caught her and... ugh, Rick, we've switched positions. She's begging me to just talk with her, but I'm not sure I can see her point of view.

"Honey," she says softly from the other side of the door, "just listen."

I sit there for a moment trying to figure out what I'm going to say, but she keeps going on.

Her voice quivered, "When you left, he offered to help."

"Help with what?!" I snark back wiping away a stray tear, "Replacing dad?!"

We both go quiet and for a minute it felt like she had left, but I hear no movement on the other side.

And although the day is just rising, the four walls surrounding me seemed to get darker and darker. I was trapped in a single space with my deepest of unforgiving thoughts.

Right after my father's funeral, it was just me, my brother and my mom. We sat there all alone in the hall of the church I hadn't visited in over ten years. There was less than a handful of people who came to say goodbye and us three where left to sit and slowly eat the egg salad sandwiches off of the platter sitting on the table at the back of the room.

We didn't cry and we didn't look at each other, in a way we had all built up a wall to stop us from realizing that he really wasn't coming back. The slideshow of photos, set up on the small stage, didn't help either. We were never going to have the closure we wanted and my mom vowed to me that she would never love another man.

Just like that, we were all different from then on out. Flint became this happy weird brother and moved out of the house as fast as he could. Mom became somewhat closed off and turned her attention to collecting antique furniture and rugs. And me, well I tried to do my best in school, but I also started slacking off just to hand out with Karmen and Chase.

God, it feels like I haven't talked to them in ages.

"It's time to move on," I hear my mom finally speak up from the hallway outside my room.

Move on...

"You promised me you would never fall in love with someone else!" I remind her furiously.

I could feel the tone shift in the air. Her swaying steps felt heavy through the vibrations of the hardwood floor.

"It's been years!" she shouts.

It was too much of me to think she would understand.

"Yeah! And what kind of parent brakes a promise?!" I exclaim just as loud.

I can pick up the sound of her taking a large breath as if smoke were coming out of her ears.

"Every single one of them!" she says before walking away back down to the living room.

I was sure that Rick would still be there probably consoling her even though in my mind I don't think she deserves it.

Knowing that I'm alone, I flop back on to my bed where I curl up on my rainbow swirled coloured comforter. I wasn't able to cry no matter how hurt I felt, but my mind definitely wasn't staying quiet.

This whole thing with Rick made no sense to me. Out of nowhere he just happens to be in my house, days after I decided to go on my horrendous adventure. My mom never showed any kind of romantic feelings towards him, and I know I'm not wrong about this. If it weren't romantic, then he wouldn't have been here at seven in the morning. No adult just sleeps over for the hell of it.

I was still trying to wrap my head around all of this, but there was still one thing that didn't sit right with me.

My mom isn't the kind of person to flip on a switch and do something out of the ordinary. She's been on the same schedule for over five years! She wakes up, makes breakfast and heads off to work. But, she does take every Friday afternoon off. She started that after... well... after dad died.

Oh... my...g-

I lost all the words I could think of.

The pieces just snapped together creating a puzzle complete with everything I had missed since I became the only child in the house. I'm naïve and clueless and not realizing any of this just proves that, but I finally got it all.

My mom's been dating Rick... behind my back.