Page 38 of Landon & Shay: Part One

She always did that—called it marijuana instead of pot or weed. I didn’t know why, but it always made it sound so much worse than it actually was.

Marijuana—the gateway drug.

“I wasn’t smoking it,” I muttered.

She gave me abullshitlook, and that made me feel like shit.

I wasn’t smoking it, but she didn’t believe me. Truthfully, in the past, I’d given her enough reasons not to believe me. She’d found enough weed in my bedroom throughout the years to think I had my own pot farm somewhere.

My mind was racing with the fact that she was home. Damn…I missed her. I wanted to hug her, but also, I wanted to yell at her for not being around enough. I wanted to call her out on not being much of a parent lately. I wanted to tell her how I wasn’t okay, and I needed her more than ever before.

But mostly, I wanted to hug her. So, so badly.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I muttered.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Me too. Come here.” She opened her arms, and I fell into her embrace like a damn needy child. She smelled like roses, and I missed that smell. I hovered over her small frame as she embraced me. Even though I was way taller than her, it felt like she was the one holding me up.

I’d almost forgotten how good she was at giving hugs.

“I missed you,” she whispered, pulling me in tighter, and I let it happen.

When we let go, I scratched the back of my neck. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted to check in. I talked to Mrs. Levi, and she seemed a bit concerned.”

Oh, that made sense. She was home because an outside person commented on her neglectful parenting skills. She was probably embarrassed that a guidance counselor called her out on such a thing. In my mom’s eyes, she probably thought she was doing a solid job. I was alive for the most part, still doing my schoolwork—only because it was a distraction for my brain—and I had managed to not burn the house down.

What more could a parent ask for?

“Let’s go get some dinner ordered,” Mom said, linking her arm with mine. “Did your father call you? He said he was going to call today.”

“Nah, I haven’t heard from him.”

Mom frowned, but she shouldn’t have been surprised by it. My father wasn’t too good at checking in on me. It was fine. I didn’t need to be checked in on by him.

“I’ll have to ask him about that the next time we talk,” she said.

“Nah, just leave it. It’s not a big deal.”

She kept frowning but didn’t say anything else as she began walking toward the kitchen. I followed her steps too, like a needy dog, and Ham—the actual needy dog—followed right behind me.

“Okay, what are you thinking? Pizza? Tacos? Tapas?” she asked me, grabbing her cell phone out of her purse.

“Anything’s fine.”

She glanced at me and smiled. “Pizza it is.”

We spent the rest of the night together. We watched shitty movies andFriendsreruns, and we talked about Mom’s clients. I told her about school, and how classes were fine. I didn’t mention Shay, because if I did, she would’ve thought I’d lost my mind, but I thought about Shay every now and then, just passing thoughts. Nothing too heavy; just simple things.

Mom and I didn’t talk about Lance, and that was probably because we both couldn’t stand bringing him up. Whenever Mom did talk about him, her eyes would water over, and she’d burst into tears over it all. He was her only brother, and losing him had done a number on her heart. She’d once mentioned that it was probably due to the stress of everything that she had the miscarriage, and that broke my cold heart. I couldn’t imagine putting that kind of pressure on oneself.

It was an unbelievably shitty situation, but Mom wasn’t to be blamed for it. I’d told her that time and time again, but she didn’t believe me. That was why I kept so much of my crap to myself instead of unloading it on her shoulders. Her baggage was already heavy enough—she didn’t need me weighing her down any more.

We both went to our beds around midnight. She told me she loved me, and I believed every syllable of the words. I never in my life doubted my mother’s love. I just knew it came in spurts. Whenever it showed up, like a famished child, I swallowed her love whole, using it to nourish my sick soul.

Mom stayed in town for two more days before she had to fly out to Florida for work. During those two days, she didn’t let me out of her sight. She even had me skip school on Friday so we could spend the whole day together. We shopped, explored, and even drove down to Chicago to replace a lamp that was broken from the party I had. I figured Mom would’ve wanted to meet up with Dad while she was in town for lunch or dinner or something, but she never brought it up. I couldn’t think of the last time the two of them had been in the same space with each other, but it seemed to work for them. Some love stories didn’t need constant watering. They made their relationship work in their own way.

Mom tried the cooking thing, too.

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