Page 44 of Love Me Like It's Real
“I’m not doing anything to myself.” I frown.
“Did you forget I made you? You can’t hide from me.”
“Oh yeah? And what am I hiding?” I rest my elbows on the table and raise an eyebrow, hiding my mouth with my cup.
“I’m no fool and neither are you. We both know why you started doing this ‘job.’” And there’s the sarcasm I’ve come to expect from her. “I just don’t understand why you continue when it destroys you.”
I let out a laugh but I choke on the coffee still swirling in my mouth.
“It doesn’t destroy me, Mother. Don’t be so dramatic. I just don’t take pleasure in seeing couples break up even if I’ve come to expect it.”
She sighs. I hate it when she sighs.
“I keep waking up every day hoping you’ve seen the light, and I keep going to bed realizing you haven’t. Honey, that man broke your heart so long ago and ever since you’ve made it your special mission to destroy love. This ‘job’ isn’t helping you move forward?—”
“Who said I want to move forward?” I huff.
“You don’t? You mean you prefer wallowing in your past and your misery?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“Unless you’re still in love with him?—”
“I am fucking not!”
“Then what’s wrong with moving forward?”
“Nothing is wrong with moving forward, Mom. Ihavemoved forward. You’re the one that thinks I haven’t.” I’m just about done with this coffee that’s turned more bitter than usual, all of a sudden.
“But have you? If you had, you wouldn’t still hold love in contempt as if all people are cut from the same cloth.”
“All peoplearecut from the same cloth.”
“And you wouldn’t be using your job as proof that they are.”
“I don’t!” I set my cup down and try to catch my breath. I hate it when she brings up the past.
“Of course you are. You use all those desperate people who are already suspicious or who know their relationship is on its last legs and use you to prove it, then you turn around and declare everyone’s love life doomed. Do you think that’s normal?”
I rub my eyes with the heels of my palms and take slow, deep breaths. I hate these conversations. They always lead nowhere. I know I’m right and she can’t convince me otherwise. “And do you think it’s more normal to offer your heart out on a plate time and time again knowing the outcome?”
Mom sighs and I lean back in my chair.
“But you don’t. That’s what I’m trying to say. If you gave yourself a chance?—”
“And why haven’t you? Why haven’t you found someone if it’s so good and easy?”
“Not this again.”
“Yeah this. You want me to move on, yet you still haven’t moved on from my sperm donor.”
“Of course I have.”
“Then why aren’t you in a relationship, Mother?” I raise my voice.
“Because I’m asexual and aromantic,” she raises her voice to match my own and I bite my own tongue.
“Oh,” I say.
