Page 24 of Lose You to Find Me

Mom scoffs as she picks up the pan and sighs, walking over to the sink and running water over it. “We never relied on your father for anything. We’ve survived fine on our own.”

Yeah, thanks to the pizza place and Simply Thai.Not wanting to go there, I nod reluctantly. “Yeah, you’re right. Hey, speaking of Dad, did he mention that we are doing lunch tomorrow? I know you saw him yesterday when you met with the lawyers.”

She hums, turning the water off and staring into the sink basin. “Yes, he told me you are meeting at the diner.” Shoulders dropping, she turns to me. “I’m glad you two are still spending time together despite all this.”

There’s no reason why I wouldn’t. Dad has never treated me badly. It was the exact opposite, actually. He’d take me on father-daughter dates every so often growing up. Mostly mini golfing or out to whatever movie was playing that I wanted to see. We’d always wind up at the diner after.

I miss having him around the house, especially because he’d always share late-night snacks with me when neither of us could sleep. Mom would scold us for eating after midnight, so we’d get sneaky. In the long run, I understand they’re better off where they are now. In different houses, living different lives.

Instead of asking about how things are going between the two of them and getting forced to hear about God knows what, I gesture toward the other pots and pans scattered everywhere. “I think I saw a cooking class being offered at that new test kitchen in town. Maybe we can sign up and have a mother-daughter day. It could be fun.”

Based on the flinch, I’d say she doesn’t agree. “I can think of better ways to spend our day, and it’s not listening to a pretentious chef tell me how to flip a pancake or season a chicken breast.”

She clearly still has trauma from the time I spit out the pancake she made me for breakfast one day before school. I was six. I think I started crying about how rubbery it tasted.

Defeated, I grab my bag and haul it over my shoulder. “It was just a thought since we haven’t spent much time together lately.”

Mom had briefly apologized for missing my birthday by ordering my dinner the night I got home. Then she got a call from a client and had to get back to work, so we barely saw each other for my make-up celebration. Maybe it would have upset me more if Bea hadn’t made my favorite dessert for my first shift, even putting the number twenty-three in icing on the cookie.

I start walking toward my room when Mom stops me. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’ve been picking up as much work as possible to make ends meet. Let’s order dinner from your favorite Chinese place and then watch a movie. You can choose which one.”

Biting my tongue, I slowly nod at the typical night we have together. She’ll be on her phone most of the time until she decides to go to bed early, leaving me to clean up and sit in silence by myself.

But just like those other times, I choose not to say a thing, because if that’s all the time I get with her, I’ll take it.

“Sure, Mom. I’d like that.”

Chapter Ten

CALEB

The first fewweeks of the semester fly by faster than I anticipate, considering my life is a stream of constant school assignments, work shifts, and hospital visits. Each day blends into the next, with the same sleep deprivation, caffeine addiction, and heavy anxiety weighing on me as Dad gets worse.

Before I know it, August turns into September and the crisp air leading to fall is the only thing that seems to give me a boost of energy when exhaustion weighs me down.

That and coffee, which I haven’t gotten as often from Bea’s because I’m a chickenshit. Ever since I discovered Raine works there, I’ve been hesitant to go at all, which means making shitty coffee in the cheap machine I bought for my apartment. It hardly hits the spot like the bakery’s dark roast, but there are some things I don’t want to deal with—my mixed feelings for my ex being one of them.

Almost as if I manifest it, a cup of coffee is set on the store counter in front of the textbook I’m reading. Matthew Clearwater, another one of my former teammates, is standing there with the same look most of my friends have been giving me lately. “Dude, you need to stop.”

Stop.I don’t know what that word even means anymore. “Stop what? Trying to pass grad school? Trying to keep a roof over my mother’s head? Living?”

Matt’s lips twitch downward at my melodramatic reply before he sighs and pulls my textbook away. “Let’s be real, man. You’re not doing any studying when you’ve gotten, what, a few hours of sleep at best? DJ said you dozed off in business economics the other day and it took him kicking you awake before you came to.”

I’d spent the night before with Dad because he wasn’t doing so hot. The nurses normally don’t let people stick around after visiting hours, but Emma was working and managed to convince her shift supervisor to let me stay so long as I was quiet and out of the way. I woke up with a blanket draped over me that definitely wasn’t there when I fell asleep and a second tray of food with my name on a piece of paper in Emma’s handwriting.

Something she wouldn’t have done if I’d told her what happened at the hardware store. Not that I wasn’t tempted to rip the Band-Aid off and risk losing her too. She deserves better than the half-assed excuses and low energy I give her.

I know that.

She knows that.

But I don’t want to let go of this.

“Mom told me I should talk to my adviser about taking a leave of absence,” I murmur, scrubbing my tired eyelids. “Dad got talked to about palliative care and hospice yesterday by his oncologist and the team who’ve been working with him. It was…” No words can describe the mood of the room when that conversation was brought up. I still don’t think any of the information they offered has really soaked in.

Matt shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Cal. I don’t think your mom is wrong though. Even if you take a few weeks off, you can make it up. Maybe you could talk to your professors about trying to line up some work and notes so you don’t fall behind if you want to come back.”

Taking the coffee he brought me, I pull back the plastic tab and take a long sip of the liquid that I have a feeling Raine made, based on Bea’s logo on the side of the cup. “I haven’t really had time to think about my options.”

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