Page 84 of Memories with Fire

Dropping her eyes back to her lap, another tear slips down her cheek. “I think he took that bravery with him when he died.”

Sucking in a breath, I bite down on my lip. Ten years ago I realized Luke was the love of my life, and he made me feel fearless. When he disappeared, so did my courage. Without knowing the full story, I turned into my mom.

Or my mom turned me into her?

Anger rises inside of me. The same anger that had me at her front door, telling her I hated her. “So you decided to take Luke away from me? Because why? You needed someone to feel the same kind of pain that you felt? What the fuck?”

“No! No, Hailey,” she says, jumping up from her seat, putting her hands up to slow me down. “No, I… I was trying to prevent the pain. Oh god.” Shoving her hands through her blonde hair, she starts pacing beside the bed. “I should have known better, I know. But I was distraught, and not thinking clearly. You were my whole world, and you almost died.”

“And?” I throw my arms out to the side. “You decided to make me wish I had?”

“No!” She whirls towards me at the end of the bed, forehead scrunched, lips in a thin line, the pain radiating from her. “You came home every day with a new adventure the two of you had gone on. Things that were dangerous, Hailey. I mean, some of it only made me anxious, like riding on his bike handlebars, and scootering all over Santa Rosé. But then you came home and told me about the cliff jumping, and it terrified me.”

She continues, after a pause to take a breath. “There was nothing I could do. I knew if I told you, you couldn’t see him anymore, you wouldn’t listen. I wouldn’t have if my parents had told me I couldn’t see your dad,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself like they can protect her or keep her together. “So I hoped and wished and prayed to your father that he would watch over you and keep you safe.”

I turn my head at that, closing my eyes as my throat clogs with emotion I don’t expect.

The first thing I remember after waking up in the hospital after my accident was seeing my dad’s face as he looked down at me. It was fleeting and made no sense—actually, it made me think I was dead. Until my mom started to freak out and pulled my attention away from him for just a split second. When I looked back, he was gone.

It was something I never told anyone because I thought I imagined the whole thing. Now I wonder if I didn’t. They never understood how I survived, but what if it was because of him?

I’ll never know, but…

“But then you took Luke to the airport, and if it weren’t for him—if you hadn’t taken him that day, you never would have been on that road. You wouldn’t have been in that accident,” she whispers, bringing me out of my memory. “They didn’t know if you were going to live, and I couldn’t handle losing you. Not after losing your dad. I couldn’t outlive both of you, Hailey. And Luke, he took so many risks, and he wanted to be a police officer. I couldn’t let that be your life.”

My chin trembles, tears sliding down my face as her pain slides into me like there’s a chord tethering us together. Slowly I bring my eyes back to her, now needing to wrap my arms around myself to hold me together. The heartache of thinking Luke hadn’t wanted me back then flares inside, a wound that’s been slowly healing the last few months, and especially the last few weeks, being reopened. Except the wound doesn’t belong to him anymore. It belongs to my mom.

“I broke into your phone. It wasn’t that hard—you always used your dad’s name and birthday back then,” she continues, having the decency to hold my stare. “And I erased every text, every call, every email… everything. I persuaded Cindi to go along with it, because I knew she would need to help me convince you he didn’t want you. With her not being here, she just kept saying she wanted to do whatever was best for you, and I told her you forgetting about Luke was that.”

“And she just went along with it? Just like that?” The words are a strangle, and I don’t even know if they make sense, but when she shakes her head, I know she understood.

“No,” she whispers. “No, she hated it. She tried to convince me not to do it, and then tried to convince me that we needed to come clean. But the damage was done, and I knew you would hate us both if you knew the truth, so she agreed not to say anything.”

“We were never the same,” I say, more to myself than my mom, thinking back. “I thought it was the accident, and the depression over Luke, but… it was because she couldn’t handle talking to me.”

My eyes close and my head dips as I realize that my mom didn’t only take Luke away from me, she took my best friend away too. God, the destruction she’d caused. And for what? To save herself? Because from where I’m sitting, that’s what it was for, cloaked in some bullshit that it was to keep me safe.

“It was to keep you safe,” I breathe, my words barely loud enough for her to hear. I feel her take a step towards me, and I lift my head. “None of this was for me. It was to keep you and your heart safe. It wasn’t for me.”

“No. That’s not true. It was for you, Hailey, but I never meant for it to make you stop living your life. I didn’t mean for it to cause all the heartache it did, or for you never to settle down. That’s why I’ve been trying to find you someone,” she explains, moving towards my end of the bed, reaching out a hand for me when she’s close enough.

I twist my body away from her, making it clear I don’t want her touching me. Through gritted teeth, I snarl, “That’s why you’ve been setting me up on blind dates?”

“Yes,” she nods vehemently, like doing so absolves her of everything she did. “I was trying to make things right.”

“I lost the love of my life, just like you did! You don’t get to try and replace that and think it makes everything better!” I explode, shouting at her, grabbing a pillow from my side to throw it across the room. Though I don’t touch her, I might as well have the way she stumbles back from me like I’ve physically hit her.

“Hailey, I didn’t?—”

“Get out.”

Her head jerks back, her eyes widening. “What?”

“You are my mom, so I will always love you, but I can’t be around you. And I don’t know if, or when, that’ll ever be possible again.” Lifting my hand, I point at the door, my chest heaving with each breath that seems harder and harder to take. “Get out.”

“Hailey, please?—”

“Get. Out.”

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