Page 111 of Sounds Like Love

A million more sheets of wind and rain. A million more bolts of lightning. There was just the storm, my mom, and me. This was what I missed the most.

This was what I would miss forever.

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yes, my heart?” she asked, detangling my hair as she pulled her fingers through it.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she replied. We stayed there for a while, watching the rain. “Your father and I aren’t ignoring what’s ahead of us, heart. I just want you to know that.”

My throat grew tight suddenly. Made it hard to swallow. “I’m sorry I lashed out.”

“I understand why. It’s all frightening. Weareall frightened. We just want to live every day as full as we can, because the only thing that makes grief worse is regret. And I don’t want anyone to regret anything—especially not your father. I’d like you to make sure he’s okay after all of this.”

Her voice was quiet and steady. This was something she had thought about for a long time. Something she had sat with. Inspected. Here I had always thought she ignored things until they were too bad to turn a blind eye to—but that might’ve just been me convincing myself that something more could’ve been done. That somethingcouldbe done. That we weren’t helpless here.

But the truth was, we were.

“I know Mitch will be okay. Georgia will make sure he is.” Her fingers were soft and gentle through my hair. “I won’t get to see very much of their future.Or yours. I have to admit, Sasha was quite a surprise, but Ami always said that the things you loved most returned. That they always would.”

“Sasha told me a lot about her.”

“I wanted to talk about her so often when you were younger, but it was hard—it was always so hard. And I just began to think … what right did I have to talk about her, when I’d barely spokentoher before she died? Our friendship was never the same once she left with Roman—when she said I’d regret staying. But now … I’m forgetting everything about her and I didn’t tell anyone. And maybe I should have.” Her fingers were soothing against my scalp. She always liked to braid my hair when I was little, and I always let her. And, after a while, I just started to braid it myself because it was just who I was. “I think a lot about that these days. Things I should tell you all, so at leastsomeoneremembers.”

I closed my eyes. For months, I’d thought about the same thing, and the opposite—how to tell her things she once remembered. “What’s it like? In your head?”

“Gray, sometimes,” she replied. “I don’t really notice. I just get frustrated. I know something is wrong, but I just … don’t understand. A few months ago, Mitch asked me if I was scared. He’s scared.”

“Are you?” I asked. These were questions I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask, but I needed to. I needed to know what it felt like for her. I needed to understand. Maybe then the tight, suffocating knot of dread in my middle would feel sated and the storm would not look so scary.

Mom said, “No, heart. I’m not scared. Iwas, but now I’m just angry. So angry. I’m angry that this is all I get. This little pinch of time. How much is left? How much of it will I spend as me?” She gave a sniff and wiped her nose.

My eyes began to burn with tears. Oh no. I steeled myself,scared that if I moved, the dread in me would crack, and I’d come undone right here in her lap. “Mom …” I whispered.

“And then I wonder when I’m gone, will my life have meant anything at all?” she went on, as if by voicing her worries she could somehow find an answer to them. “When you asked if I regretted giving up on music—I lied. It’s easier to give the perfect answers than the messy ones. Because of course I do, heart. I regret it so much I can’t talk about it—any of it. I can’t remind myself of the person I used to be, who wanted to be a yelp into the void … because all I am is a sigh. What did I do in this life that mattered?”

I could tell her everything she’d done. Everything that mattered. Every small thing that built up to bigger things—

But that wasn’t what she meant.

She wasn’t talking about Mitch or me, or even Dad.

There was a small whisper in my heart, and I knew it was in hers, too, asking what we were made for, wanting answers in the form of art and music and beautiful things.

“Roman always talked about the spotlight like it was home. He justbaskedin it. If he wasn’t creating, he wasn’t breathing. But when I stood up there”—she nodded to the stage, a far-off look in her eyes—“I never felt so small. I wasn’t full of that star stuff. Not like you, not like Mitch.”

You’re wrong, I wanted to tell her, because neither my brother nor I could’ve been made of star stuff without her.You could’ve shone just as bright.

“And I was scared,” she admitted. “I think that’s what I regret. I regret being scared, because I thought I had time. I always thought I had time.” Her fingers combed through my hair gently, unraveling the knots with patience. “But we never have enough. I’ll never have enough.”

She was quiet for a long moment. The rush of waves washed in toward the shore, and then out again, timeless in a way that we’d never be.

Finally, she said, “How do I forgive my past self for all the futures I didn’t become? I don’t know.”

My mom was supposed to know everything.

I squeezed my eyes closed, but the tears were already there. “It’s not fair.”

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