Page 54 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
“But...why? You never take time off.”
“In case you needed me,” she whispered, her big eyes wide and hopeful that’d be the case.
“Oh.”You don’t even see that she’s been trying.I mirrored her position on the bed, tugging at the loose thread on my sweats.
“We can talk,” she said. “Or not.”
“I broke up with my boyfriend.” It felt weird calling him that. We were so much more. I watched her from under my lashes, testing the waters. Her rosy smile invited me to tell her more, but her hard swallow spoke of her nervousness, which actually made me more inclined to share. It sucked being afraid alone.
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” she said, treading lightly.
Fresh tears stabbed like knives. “I’m forgetting him. Dad,” I clarified, and she sat confused by the subject change, but I needed to regain some composure before talking about Sebastian.
“Well, it’s been a while since he passed away. It’s natural to lose some of the finer details.” Her shoulders slumped inward, and she reached under the pillow wearing a guilty smirk and withdrew a creased sheet of paper. “I was actually reading this before you knocked. The TV was a cover.”
“What is it?”
“It’s a letter from your dad. I read it sometimes when I start to forget things. Or when I need to be told I’m not a bad mom,” she said jokingly but with a touch of sincerity.
“You did your best.”
“Did I?AmI?”
I gripped her hand. “I didn’t make it easy.” It occurred to me that I’d had Danny and Theory to help me through the more difficult moments. Mom had no one. She suffered alone. With my own heart torn to ribbons, I didn’t know how she’d done it. I empathized, even knowing that my current pain was but a mere shadow of what it must’ve been like for her to lose Dad.
“I’m a mess, Mom.” My blinking gaze struck hers. “I’m not okay.”
She cupped my hands in hers. “I am too, and I’m not either. ‘We’ll figure it out one way or the other way.’ Together.” She retrieved the tissue box from her nightstand. “Tell me about this ex-boyfriend.”
“He’s… older than me—”
“—How much older?”
“You won’t like it.” To her credit, she kept her cool. “He reminds me of Dad—but I know he’s not my father,” I rushed on to say before she got any ideas. “We had a lot in common. Liked the same things.” I filled my cheeks with air, unable to go any further.
“Well, it doesn’t surprise me that you’d be drawn to someone with your dad’s characteristics.” She pursed her lips, and her fingers tightened on my hands. “Pheeny—”
“Mom,” I warned. “I don’t need you to fight for me.Please…”
“Okay, okay.” She held her palms up. “You’ve been in a holding pattern since Dad died, Pheeny. Waiting. Waiting for him to return, or for me to be him, wishing your friends were more like you or him. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself to stop waiting? To figure out the entirety of who you are outside of him?”
I nodded, too tired to analyze her words right then, but storing them for later. I kissed her cheek. “You deserve to be loved for who you are, Mom.” I promised myself right then that I’d do better at showing her that. I aimed for the door.
“Pheeny.”
“Yeah?” Something about the sternness of her tone raised the hairs on my arms. It was the same one she would use on the front office staff when she’d come blowing into my middle school like a tornado.
“A woman stopped me in the hall at the hospital a few days ago. She was lost and needed directions to the obstetrician wing. We got to talking and it turns out, until very recently, she and her husband lived in the house behind ours. The one that your boarded up window faces,” she said deliberately. “She said her husband, also until recently, taught AP philosophy at the high school.”
With my back to her, I yanked my sweatshirt sleeves over my hands to hide my balled fists.
“You take AP philosophy, don’t you?”
Not facing her would seem odd at this point. Pivoting around, I said, “Oh, you must be talking about Mr. Wicked.” It took every bit of willpower to say his name like I didn’t care. Like it was something I had to dig through my memories to pluck.
“Yes. That’s his name,” she whispered, doing the math in her head. “You have your whole life ahead of you, Phoenix. Maybe the breakup with your boyfriend was for the best. You might not get it now, but you will, sweetheart.”
I smiled because she needed to feel useful, and because I didn’t trust myself to answer.
