Page 143 of The Fake Out Flex

"I want it unconditionally. Even when you don't understand or agree with what I'm doing. I know moms are always gonna mom, but I need you to trust me. You and Dad raised me well. I'm smart. But I will make mistakes. I'll have stuff I'll need to figure out. I just want you to be there for me. Not if I say or do or wear the things you want me to, but regardless."

She places the cup and saucer on the coffee table and squares her shoulders. "I'm going to tell you something I've never told you before."

"You and Dad are lizard people and only eat time-traveling vegetables."

"Excuse me?"

"Never mind. Continue. Please."

"What I was going to say is that I only want what's best for you, Levi, Harper, and Laney," she begins.

"I know that, Mom."

She folds her hands neatly in her lap, trying to mask her discomfort. Mom is the queen of chitchat and can make polite small talk with anyone.

But talking about real things? This is way outside her comfort zone.

"As you know, your father and I got married quite young."

"You were twenty, right?"

"I was. Just turned. By the time I turned twenty-one, I had dropped out of college, gotten married, and had my first child."

This much I know.

"Do you know which university I dropped out of?"

"I have no idea—Wait. No. Don't tell me. UCLA?"

"Correct. And would you like to take a guess at what I was enrolled to study?"

"No way. Journalism?"

Mom nods. "That's right. Now…Listen carefully because I don't want you to misunderstand what I'm about to say."

"I'm listening. Carefully."

"Being a wife and mother is, by far, the biggest blessing of my life. I love your father with all my heart, just like I love all my children. However…I have also put my own life on hold for my husband and my children. It was a little different once you and Levi were born, but for the first few years with Laney and Harper, I followed your father around the country as he played. I never went back to college to get my degree. I devoted myself to raising my children. I didn't pursue a career. My path was laid out in front of me. I never got to make mistakes and figure stuff out on my own. And while I'm very happy with my life and everyone in it, I want you to have what I never did. Choices."

I take a few deep breaths, processing everything she just said. I look up at her and say, "Mom, I hear what you're saying. Things make a lot more sense now, like why you pushed so hard for me to go to UCLA and study journalism, but if you want me to have the ability to make choices, you have to step back and let me make them, and…" I add this last part as delicately as I can. "They have to be my choices."

"I realize that. It's just that I've had four children. I wanted one of them to go to a university. Does that make me a terrible mother?"

"It doesn't make you a terrible mother," I say, offering her a smile. "But Levi and Harper did go to school in LA."

"Oh, please. One-year diplomas from some ridiculously overpriced media entertainment school don't count," Mom says with an unimpressed eye roll.

Normally, I'd defend my siblings and say that it still counts as an education, but right at this very moment, I let it slide. Because I get what Mom's saying, even if it is all sorts of messed up for her to be laying all her unfulfilled expectations on me.

I'm the youngest. Shouldn't she be over parenting by now and just be glad I'm alive and not in jail? Why did my siblings fail me and not tire her out? Oh, that's right—because none of them attended an approved four-year college, that's why. Thanks, guys.

I hang around for another ten minutes or so before telling her I should get going.

"Oh, I almost forgot to ask," Mom says as we reach the entryway. "How's Fraser?"

"Uh, he's great."

"And how are things with the two of you?"

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