Page 22 of Hart Breaker

“What are you going to do, hide in here and feel sorry for?—”

“She said leave,” comes from a deep voice that’s equally as terrifying as it is comforting.

“This is ridiculous, Riley,” he mumbles as he tucks tail and walks out my door. “You mess up, and it’s my fault again?”

Dad steps in through the door and slams it behind him.

“Morning, Dad. What brings you by?” I smile up at him.

He pulls me into a hug. “Salting and sanding the parking lot so you can open up. It’s Wednesday; Mom’s doing hot mom shit.”

“Is she wearing pink, too?” I ask, walking toward the coffee maker.

“It’s Wednesday, of course she is.”

I’m not sure why moms get all the backlash from their children, well, mostly daughters—okay, whatever, I was a dick, and in my head, I am trying to drag someone with me. At least I can admit it … to myself … now.

Regardless, for some reason, when I started dating, I wanted her as far away from me as I could possibly get from her. She was the enemy; she could never understand what I was going through. In those few moments, when I was not acting like a rag and things were good between my boyfriend and me, I told her how amazing he was. I know I romanticized everything, painted the picture in more vivid colors, made it grander and so pretty that I actually believed it.

In retrospect, and now that I’m of an age where my brain is fully developed, I wonder if it was because my boyfriend was being a dick, or me suspecting he was cheating, or liked someone else more than me, or if it was actually because my trauma was much less … traumatic than hers when she was my age.

Picture if you will: on one side of the road, there is an ever-blooming garden with bright vibrant colors, beautiful birds chirping overhead, soft giggles from children playing in the distance; and then, on the other side of the road, a frost-covered graveyard where flowers no longer bloom.

It was actually her, Jade Ross Brooks, and her overuse of the term “same boat, different ocean,” that brought upon this realization—the realization that all of our journeys are somewhat the same. We’re born, we learn to walk, and if you’re lucky, you feel safe, warm, and never go hungry. But even if we do, the journey is the same.

We go through elementary school, at least on this side of the ocean, and we all experience separation from our parents, some more traumatic than others, but again, it’s part of the journey. As the journey continues, we will all eventually get our hearts broken and fall in love with someone incapable of loving us back. We’ll lose friends and miss them even when we gain others. Or maybe they were not lost, but we walked away from them so that we were able to move on with life and step away from toxic relationships. But unless we address the issue, they’re still there; they’re still with us.

By the time we get through college, there’s a great chance we’ve lost someone, and by the time we get married, there’s a great chance that we’d have to lose part of ourselves. And then, when we have children, none of that matters. If we’re lucky, all of those souvenirs, wanted or unwanted, from our journey that we have packed in an old-school backpack or suitcase without wheels—since that would be the hardest to bring along—we’ll realize we do not have time or the mental capacity to keep that bitch out in the open.

That’s where I am now. Well, where I was until Brett decided to step back in time and dump my emotional suitcase all over my fucking favorite throw rug.

“Got a question for you, Ry,” Dad says from right beside me. I was so deep in my head that I didn’t even realize he was there.

“Not sure I’m in a place where I can answer the question, Dad, but I’ll give it a try.”

He hip-checks me, pushing me out of the way, and begins making coffee in the machine he swore was too complicated. “Is it a one-lumps or two-lumps kind of day?”

Tears sting my eyes, threatening to spill, but I’m not afraid. I’ve long since figured out how to make that stop, so I answer, “I’m going to start with two, probably gonna add a squirt, or several, of chocolate, and a squirt or two of caramel. Then there’s a really good chance that I’m going to have to open the fridge to get out the whipped cream to top it off.”

“The thing about morning coffee, Riley, is, one day, you’re gonna realize the best part of it isn’t the sugar, the syrups, or even the whipped cream that makes it so good. You’re going to look across the table and realize that the company you’re keeping is what’s most important.”

And that’s what we do. Dad sits across the table, drinking his black coffee, while I drink my coffee with two lumps of sugar, and we talk about the fucking weather.

I stay in my bubble of peace, doing laundry, cleaning my already clean house, and listening to one of Mom and Dad’s old 90’s mixtapes.

And that’s all well and good, perfect actually, until there’s a knock at the door, and I open it to the UPS man bringing me a giant box containing my freaking wedding dress.

“I’m not going to cry. I promised myself I was not going to cry, but Riley, you look absolutely gorgeous,” Mom says with her hands to her chest. Those blue eyes that she didn’t give me— are sparkling.

“I’m going to have to agree with you”—I pause, knowing that if there is any time to retire her actual name from my mouth and call her mom again, this is it—“Mom.”

It was said so softly that she should not have been able to hear it, but she did. She heard it because it’s important to her.

“I’m not going to push or expect that was an invitation to pry into your life. I won’t do it. But I will tell you that I love you, no more and no less, regardless of what you call me.”

I decide to place this conversation on the flotation device so it does not sink any deeper than it already has. And trust me; it could sink like the fucking Titanic.

“You should know better than to say something like that to someone like me. I’m not one hundred percent sure what chromosome holds the sarcasm, but I am one hundred percent sure it came from you.”

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