Page 56 of Sacrifice
“It was one of the things Gage didn’t want to get rid of. He said the same thing, that she used to make pancakes with it.”
“We didn’t get many home-cooked meals. Pancakes were her specialty.” I laugh.
“She tried to make Gage pancakes the day before she died, but she was so weak,” Julia says and then stops abruptly. “I’m sorry.”
I’ve never talked about her or what happened between us with anyone. When I didn’t come back when Gage called and said she was dying, no one brought it up again. I flew home once she passed, went to the funeral, and then headed back to Minnesota again. Gage never questioned me on it. I think he always knew why I acted how I did. Gage got me in ways that no one else did. No one else ever will.
“Nah, it’s okay,” I say.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
The million-dollar fucking question is now laid grandly at my feet.
I look at her blankly, hoping she’ll apologize again and change the topic. Instead, her big, brown eyes fill with expectancy. She actually waits for a damn answer.
My instincts say to get the fuck out of here. Stand up, walk to the door, and go. My heart says otherwise. Its beats are telling me I’ve done that to her more times than I should’ve, and I can’t do it to her again.
“I don’t know,” I mutter, giving her another chance to change topics.
“Yes, you do.”
I release a ragged breath and try to look at her, but I pull my gaze to the wall instead. I can’t look into those eyes. I know she’s hoping for some beautifully fucked-up answer, something that makes some motherfucking sense and will make her think I’m not a total bastard. The truth isn’t that kind.
“I’m the asshole you think I am.”
“Crew,” she says. She doesn’t continue until I look at her again. “Why didn’t you come home?”
“What does it matter?”
“It justdoes.”
I think about the hundred reasons, the way they interconnect like a spider web, each reason weaving into the next. I don’t even know where to start.
“I was a disappointment to her.” I sound like a pussy. I know I do.
“You were not.”
“Nah, I was. Remember when I came home?” I cough, trying to decide whether to bring up that she was with Gage then. Choosing not to, I continue, “I was only here for a night. Before I left, she and I talked.”
“And?”
“She was in the kitchen, drinking her tea, and I kissed her on the cheek. I was so fucking pissed off for obvious reasons. I was just going to walk out, but she asked me to sit down. So I did. She just watched me for a while like she did when I was a kid.”
My hands shake at the memory of realizing I had lost every-fucking-thing. College had been a blast: parties, girls, wrestling. But I had started to get the feeling that everything was superficial. The girls, the invites, the friends . . . that all came with winning. What would happen if I lost? Nothing felt real, anymore. Nobody knew who I really was, me included.
I started to realize just how fucking stupid I really was.
I woke up one morning and realized that I’d not talked to my mom in months. That I had no fucking clue what was going on with Gage. That I hadn’t said anything substantial to Jules in more days than I could remember. The chick lying next to me that morning looked so different from Jules and I remember how it rolled my stomach, her blond hair sprawled across my chest. For some reason, everything hit me at once. I needed to find that scrap of whatever it was that made meme.I needed a second chance to make things right with everyone. So I bought a ticket with some money loaned to me by my coach and flew home to surprise everyone.
Surprise, fucking, surprise.
“Ma asked me if I was happy. I smarted something off and she shushed me and asked me again. I yelled, you know, how could I be happy walking into the mess I did? That everyone in my life had changed and I knew nothing about it. That I meant nothing to any of you.”
I remember her face, all lined with years of hard work and little else. How her eyes looked like mine and Gage’s, but colorless in a way, a film on them from days without a smile. I felt like shit for leaving her behind and basically ignoring her, but feeling that in front of her made me angry.
“Ma told me she thought I’d lost my way. That I’d gotten too big at school and had forgotten who I was. That I’d let the glory or whatever dumb word you wanna use get to my head. That she and Gage missed me. That she wanted me to remember that.”
I stand, embarrassed for saying this out loud, embarrassed for having done this at all. But at the same time, it is freeing.
