A Hater's Gamble (BxB)

FORTY-TWO

"If I knew then what I knew now, we'd be all right."

                                   M I L E S

Four days before Christmas, rain and hailstones littered the sky. The roads. The rooftops. I decided against heading into the club this night because I once heard that hailstones brought bad luck.

Bad luck at the gambling table was like trying to squeeze gold from a rock.

The candlelight in my room flickered and swayed, like it was dancing. Though the flame was little and feeble, it offered me warmth, which I was grateful for. I realized that if I placed the little candle outside, in the roaring downpour, it would vanish without a fight. It would no longer dance and sway.

For now, the candlelight was mine and vibrant. I found myself smiling, despite the loom of much more haunting things.

As I looked outside into the driveway, Maddie's car was gone. She was out at a poetry slam, of all things. She told me it was educational and enlightening, though I knew that was bullshit.

Madeline Medley would never attend a poetry slam for sport. She went for a boy. I didn't know his name, but I knew he existed. He was responsible for her recent lively energy. I supposed I should've been thanking him.

My mother, on the other hand, was working late. She told me she would be preparing a dinner for us. Just us two, since Maddie was elsewhere. In the back of my mind, I knew this was all part of my mother's process of creating amends. I was impressed, I was.
However, there was always a part of me that expected her to fail, to abandon us again.

Maddie didn't think like this. I noticed how my mother and sister hugged more frequently now. Late night coffee at the kitchen counter. Morning breakfast with smiles. Board games with pastries.

I tried to halt the mindset that existed before my mother's newfound remediation. I realized, as I looked at my wispy candlelight, that I needed to have hope in her. To trust her.

If I learned to trust Liam Coleman, I could certainly do the same with my own mother. I loved her, as any child would love their mother. I gambled for her, so I could sustain her addiction. That wasn't love—it was selfishness. I let my mother deteriorate her mind, vanquish her soul, and depend on poison, all so that she could be satisfied with me. All so that she could stay here, in this house. So that I could say that my mother had not left us, not fully.

It was wrong to fuel her addiction, to allow it. I would no longer do it. Tonight at dinner, I would make my amends, too. It was the only place to begin healing a tattered relationship.

When I heard the front door open from the floor below, I set aside my notebook and flew downstairs, eager to greet my mother. To embrace her, for the first time in awhile. When I reached the foot of the stairs, all my good intentions seemed to falter and give out. The air in my lungs felt venomous.

My first instinct was to give into the tears that begged to be shed. Betrayal was a nasty thing, an abuse of trust was worse.

"Mom", I whispered, barely moving my lips.

My mother didn't seem to hear me as she stumbled over the rug at the door. She knocked into the little table in the doorway, gripping it for support. Her once bouncy hair was matted from the rain as her entire body wracked with violent tremors. She hadn't shut the front door. Water slammed against pavement.

I made no move to close it, I was motionless with stupor.

The raincoat I'd seen her shrug on this morning was no longer present. It was gone, discarded. Droplets of water flecked my mother's bare arms. She now wore a thin black tank-top, despite the clatter of her teeth. Her eyes were red and bright—too bright—as they darted around the living space. She looked at her home like she'd never seen it before, like it was a shimmering palace, even though it was brown couches and wooden tables.