Page 48 of Love Not Qualified

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.I repeated the words over and over under his fists.

She didn’t open her eyes.

When he fell asleep on the couch, only his hiccups filled the room as I stared at my mother across the floor whose breaths I counted. We stood there on the cold tiles, and I waited for Dad to leave for work, who took Nash with him, before I checked on my mother.

She blinked and I’ve never felt such relief in my life. I hugged her to my chest, tears running down my cheeks as I whispered, “Why did you do that?” I was shaking, rocking her to my chest and ignoring the sharp pain the bruises on my body caused.

“We’ll leave.” Her voice was hoarse, tired. “Where’s Nash?”

“Dad took him,” I whispered.

“We’ll take him from school.”

I packed up everything—which wasn’t more than two bags—and we waited in the parking lot of Nash’s school the entire day so we could take him with us. Time barely passed by and we were starving, yet we somehow both knew that was going to be the case from now on.

Nash walked out of the building, and I was already hot on my heels to go grab him when my mother’s hand circled on my arm. “He’s here.”

Just from the way he was looking everywhere in the parking lot gave me the confirmation that he found out and he knew we’d come after Nash.

Mom froze, gulping at the sight of Dad. She turned to me, placing her hands on my shoulders. “Stay here.”

“No.” I instantly fought her, shaking my head.

“Haelyn, stay here while I get your brother back.”

Ma ran as fast as she could with the injury on her head, but by the time she reached them, they were already driving away.

She fell on her knees, crying until her lungs gave out.

“My baby,” she kept repeating when I got to her.

“Ma?” I tried, not sure what to do. “I think we should call the police.”

Mom looked at me, tears running down her cheeks as she shook my body with her palms. “No.” She stressed the word, wiping her wet skin.

“Why?”

She took a deep breath, looked around, and grabbed my hand. “You’ll understand this when you’re older, but your dad has powerful friends and they’d take you and Nash away from me.”

So we left with sorrow settled deep in our chests, and for the next two weeks, we were on a hunt for apartments filled with guilt. Mom started fainting from one time a day to every hour, horrible headaches attacking her temples with no shame.

And then one day… she fell on the bed with her eyes open, unable to move or to speak.

I smiled down at her escaping my memories, taking one curl away from her beautiful face. “Nash is fine,” I lied. “He’s in Europe, thinking about us.”

Delivering that kind of news to a woman in her state could’ve made everything so much worse. So the care aids advised me to act like nothing happened and because I didn’t want to lose the last person I had, I agreed.

I lied to her every time I came here with a smile on my face, even if the knife in my heart twisted every time I pronounced his name.

“You’re going to get better,” I promised, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, before turning on my heels and exiting her room with one last glance at her face.

When I walked down the hallway, I wiped my tears from my cheeks and threw my back against a wall, my own sobs brushing past my ears. I glanced sideways where the day room was, where sons and daughters spent time with their parents, enjoying their presence.

As much as I loved my mom, it was hard to watch this ghost version of her. I got used to talking alone, but she barely looked like a human, and her state… was nothing but a reminder of that terrible night when life ended for her.

A tall masculine back faced me, his knees bent as he talked with an old woman.His figure was so familiar I was sure I’d seen him before. Maybe we ran into each other when I came to visit my mom or maybe he was a guy I used to work for.

His profile came into view and I froze.

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