Page 25 of Bitter Truths

“So—what?” I blink rapidly while I process his words, but they’re not computing in my damn head.

Cancer? She has cancer?

Holy shit. The great fucking Rebecca Hathaway has cancer?

Hathaways don’t cry, son.Do they get fucking cancer?

He blinks and stands, brushing the creases in his pants. “Nothing, son. She’s resting now, but she’d like to see you when she wakes.”

“Is she . . . dying?”

He raises his eyes to mine, and they flicker when he nods his head. I look away from the empty stare, searching my soul for the cause of the cramp squeezing my stomach tight.

Death isn’t a topic that we’ve never encountered before. Mother’s relentless ups and downs made for a lot of near misses. Even so, I can’t stop the past that roars through me so rapidly I’m dizzy.

Your Mother’s not well, son.

Griffin, come lay with me. You love me, right? More than him?

My throat closes, but I swallow past the lump as he says, “Son—”

Standing, I nod and murmur something I don’t fucking hear before backing through the door and stumbling down the hall.

You disgust me.

Fumbling with the latch on the door, I breathe in the fresh air, but it does nothing for the spots dancing behind my eyes.

Griffin! I told you to be quiet.

She’ll be fine, but she’s going to be away for a while.

Quit crying your fake tears.

When I open my eyes, I’m in the fort, and blindly, I lean my head against the wall. I’ve refused to think about those times, and I’d hoped they were buried, but some things never truly leave. They just fucking linger . . . like cancer.

Cancer.

My mother is dying. What a fucking cluster.

If you had asked me yesterday, I’d have laughed at the notion and welcomed the end of this ridiculous story. But the reality is, I don’t know how to feel beyond the burn of panic searing my damn lungs.

Images of her stricken face rise in my mind and I push them away, but they linger like a bad stink.

Did she take her rage out on me because Father was never there? Did she see something in me that made her crazy?

I know what the shrinks say, but I don’t agree. These weren’t the ravings of a woman who couldn’t see past the delusions in her head. She saw me all right. She just didn’t like what she saw.

When I was younger, I tried so hard to be what she wanted me to be, but no matter how quietly I walked, how still I sat, or how cowed I was, she was never happy.

Truthfully, I think she hated me from the damn womb. I grew tired of analyzing why and eventually gave up, but her sour words still coat my skin.

It’s her hate that formed me and what I’ve carried in my soul since.

This is what drew me to Halsey. To her, I didn’t stink with the filth that surrounded me. Whatever she saw, it wasn’t that, and it opened a door I never thought possible at that age. One where I was free and Mother and her lunacy fell away.

Rubbing my face, I turn away from the burn and glance around the space. Dust lingers in the corners and on the shelves. A picture Halsey drew is still pinned to the old wood, one of the three of us from before.

Her hearty laugh fills my vision, and with a weird chuckle I refuse to acknowledge might be a sob, I shuffle through the shit I squirreled away. Hidden behind a pile of blankets, old comic books and games, is the wooden box my grandmother gave me a long time ago.

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