Page 79 of Defect
“I’m mentally damaged? I’m glad you brought that up like you’ve been doing every five minutes since the crash.”
“It’s because you won’t listen. Even after you got jumped by those boys, you won’t listen to me. I’m trying to help you live a better quality of life but you refuse to cooperate.”
“Oh, yeah?” I laughed but it was a humorless sound. I leaned against the wall and it creaked under my weight. “I refuse to cooperate or I refuse to behave like the sick person you want me to believe I am?” Confusion painted her brown face and she shook her head at me as if it would stop the words from leaving my mouth. Nothing would stop them. They needed to be out in the open.
“There’s no believing or not believing. There are only facts and lies,” she said defiantly.
“I agree. Only facts and lies. So let’s talk about the fucking lies, Ma. Yesterday Solana took me to see Doctor Chin.” I let that hang in the air for a few moments. I wanted to take in the look of horror in her eyes. I wanted her to know that I knew before I even said it. “She let me drive over there while you were trying to attack her car like a psycho. Guess what? I drove over there just fine.”
“You could have killed yourself! That girl is trouble for you, Ezra. She has you doing dangerous things you don’t need to be doing because of your brain…”
“Shut up about my goddamn brain! I told you I saw Doctor Chin yesterday. He told me everything. He told me I was healing. He told me he set up recovery therapy for me but I never showed up. He told me all the doctors expected me to make a full recovery. He said I was a normal young man and I didn’t have any limitations. Not one, Ma.” My voice lowered to a quiet hush. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
“Ezra…” her voice broke into a million pieces. If she hadn’t turned into such a monster, I would have felt bad for her. “You can’t listen to doctors all the time. They…they don’t know you the way that I do. You have to understand.”
“Understand what? Do you have a medical degree? Did you study neurology and suddenly you know better than a team of doctors? Why would you do something like that?” I watched as she wrung her hands thousands of times. She paced the floor in front of the couch before sitting down and looking up at the pictures of Everett everywhere.
“You don’t know the pain of losing a child,” she began. “When the doctors told me Everett was dead on arrival I…”
I cut her off swiftly. I couldn’t sit and listen to more lies when I was giving her the opportunity to tell the truth. There was no more space for lies. I’d been pumped full of them and they were making me sick.
“Don’t bring Ev into this bullshit. I won’t let you. I know you pulled the plug on him. Don’t cover his memory in your twisted lies. Tell the truth about him at least. He lived for two days. Two days!” My voice exploded. I stood up straight and the picture frames on the mantel rattled like chattering teeth. The moment was still and ripe with silence.
Tears flooded Mom’s eyes garnering no sympathy for me. Fuck those tears. They weren’t tears of remorse. They were tears from getting caught.
“He was brain dead on arrival, Ezra…I-I.”
“You what? You neglected to tell me that. You told me, and everyone else including the news, that Ev died on impact. Why? Was it because you didn’t want the world to know how impatient you were? How cruel and swift you were? You didn’t even wait for me to wake up.”
Mental images of Everett lying in the hospital on life support flooded my brain and tears stole away my thoughts for a moment. The only way to bring me back to the present was to think about Solana and how her warm hands felt on me.
“They told me there was no chance of him coming back, Ezra! He was gone!”
“He wasnotgone. You pulled the plug on him. I’ll never know if he would have opened his eyes after hearing my voice. I’ll never know if all I needed to do was wake up and hold his hand like I did when we were little. I’ll never know if he needed more time and someone who cared enough to fight for his fucking life!” Mom sprang to her feet and slapped my face as hard as she could. It stung and I rubbed the sore spot but that’s about all I did. I had enough control over myself not to stoop as low as hitting a woman. Especially not my mother.
“Don’t you dare act like I didn’t fight for my son. Everett wasmy son. Do you understand how badly that hurt me? I had to let him go. You were in a coma and they couldn’t wake you up. I had so much going on that…”
“That you made a horrible mistake taking Ev off life support so quickly. We were identical twins,” I said. The pressure in my chest pushed against my heart making it ache. “We had a connection that nobody else understood. If I could have just…”
“There was no way you were going to bring him back! Stop it! That’s exactly why I didn’t tell you he was on life support. You’re beating yourself up over nothing.”
“Overnothing? My brother’s life wasn’tnothing. I don’t understand how you could do all this and sit here like you’re justified. You’re a horrible mother.”
“I needed to keep you close, Ezra.” She tried to hold my hands but I yanked away so violently it made her flinch. “You were going to leave me and go away to NYU. How would I have lived without Everett and with you in New York? I only wanted a chance to make life better for you.”
“By lying to me? By not telling me about recovery therapy? By keeping me caged in the house? Answer me!” My voice thundered, making her jump.
“I needed you close to me. Ineedyou. You’re all I have left in the world. I lost your father, I lost Everett, and you were going to leave me too. I needed all the time I could get with you, baby. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how else to keep you here. My heart would shatter if you healed then left.” She pressed her lips together and sniffled. “I would do anything in the world to keep you close to me.”
“It’s amazing that you’re playing the victim like I should have some kind of sympathy for you after what you’ve done. You treated me like shit after I got out of the hospital. You manipulated me and fucked up my self-confidence. Youpaidpeople tojumpme.” She blinked rapidly and opened her mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t try to explain that shit away. I’m done with you, Ma. You’re dead to me at this point. There’s no coming back from this shit. If it weren’t for Solana I would have believed everything you said. It would have taken me so long to realize what a conniving, disturbed person you really are. I would have lost years of my life fucking around with you.” I rubbed my forehead and walked over to the stairs while my mother sobbed into her hands.
“I’m moving across the street. Seems the only person in this whole world who cares about me is Solana.”
“She doesn’t even know you! I forbid you to leave this house, Ezra! I need you!” Her words trembled with fear and sadness. I left her down there while I finished packing my bags. I loaded up three huge duffel bags and lugged them down the steps. My mother was standing by the front door when I got downstairs like a human barrier.
“Move, please,” I said, adjusting the bags on my shoulders.
“You can’t leave me.”
