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She can’t make up her mind.

One day Hally loves me and I feel it. Down to the very core of who I am. And then I do something like say the wrong thing, and all of a sudden I don’t appreciate her or whatever the hell she’s prone to saying when she yells at me.

I don’t know how to react or handle her. All it does is turn me on if I’m honest with myself. I hate the outcome though. It’s easy for her to say things that hurt. Just as easy as it is for her to say the words that make me feel like I’m worth something to her.

She’ll say she’s sorry. She’ll say she doesn’t mean it.

She does all the talking, and that’s the problem.

I sit in my car outside my house and think about the fight over and over. I know I could have just said I was sorry and I don’t want to see her upset. That would have made her pause at least. That’s my problem though, my dad made sure I learned not to speak up when I’m being yelled at.

The heat from outside is already leaking into the car, so I pull the keys out and make my way to 2204 Winston Street. I ignore everyone else as I get out of the car and walk inside. The steps are old, made of rough stone and uneven. I’ve fallen down them a few times as a kid, and they’re the reason for the scar on my upper thigh.

I’m quiet when I walk in, listening to the sound of the TV playing in the living room. Taking a quick look in, I see Ma passed out in front of it. I don’t know if she has night shift tonight or not, but I don’t wake her up. I never do.

Not unless I want the shit beat out of me.

I thought Dad was bad until he split, but that’s when Ma just took his place. Before I turn to go up the stairs, I see bottles lined up on the table in the kitchen. The pizza box from last night is there, open and empty, so at least I know she ate. Even though it looks like she had an entire case of beer along with it.

The old wooden stairs creak as I make my way up, two steps at a time. The higher I get, the hotter it gets, like stagnant heat.

I don’t know why I even came home this early.

My bookbag smacks against the wall of my bedroom, right next to the nightstand. Along with my bed, they’re the only furniture in the room. Even with the fan still going, it’s hot as hell in my room.

If Hally hadn’t snapped, I’d be with her. It’s fucked up that I miss her; I know I can’t keep her. Maybe one day if I come back to this town, like years from now, when I have a chance to do something with my life, we can be together again. Maybe then I could come get her and hold onto her.

But she’d still get pissed, and I still won’t know how to say the right things.

I used to wonder if it was my fault that I didn’t get along with my mother. I thought maybe it was the same as it was with Hally. That I just didn’t know how to do the right thing. I tried though.

I swear I did. I thought maybe there was a silent truce between us, an unspoken love. My mother went through phases, with the drugs, the boyfriends. Whatever it was, I was quiet and stayed out of it, unless she needed me.

She kicked me out when I stopped her fuck-of-the-week boy toy from beating the shit out of her. He wasn’t the first to smack her around. Just like Dad used to.

She didn’t even give me clothes, nothing. Just kicked me out and then let him beat the shit out of me on the street. It was only days after what happened to Hally. It was my fault for reacting, I think. But I couldn’t let him pull her hair and smack her around.

For months I tried to go back home; I didn’t have a place to stay and just moved from one friend’s house to the next, looking for a place to crash. I thought when he left, things would go back to what they were for me and my mom.

But I was eighteen, almost out of high school and therefore, not her problem anymore. Or so she told me.

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“Why aren’t you eating?” Mom asks me again as I push the mashed potatoes around on my plate. My silverware clinks on the ceramic plate as I set it down.

“I’m just not hungry,” I lie.

I can’t stop thinking about the fight I got into with Nathan and whether or not he’ll still love me tomorrow.

It wasn’t supposed to turn into what it did. I wish Nathan would just care. I don’t even know what we were fighting over. It doesn’t matter. I hate talking to a wall. I hate it when he doesn’t listen and the problem isn’t fixed.

I can’t just go on pretending like everything’s okay.

My throat starts to close and I try to swallow, but I can’t. I’m quick to reach for my glass of water and take a large gulp. I ignore my mother’s eyes on me, assessing, worrying.

Maybe I should tell her. Maybe she would know what to do.

“Is something wrong?” my mom asks and my dad elbows her. The table is square, but my father sits at the spot that faces the front window in the dining room, so I still think of it as the head.

I eye the two of them as they share a glance.

“You can talk to me about anything, you know that,” my mom says.

My dad keeps his eyes on the plate in front of him as he cuts up his pork chop and takes a bite. I’ve always appreciated how Dad lets me have time to myself. Mom’s the opposite.

“I know,” I tell my mom and scoop up a bit of the potatoes, but I just end up putting the fork down.

If Nathan didn’t live where he does, I could just walk to his house. I don’t have a car though, and he’d be pissed if I walked there to see him. And it’s freezing outside. I did once, and it’s the only fight we’ve gotten into where I was scared to talk back to him. He never yelled at me like that before.

It’s because he loved me enough to want me safe. And that only makes me want to go to him even more.

I love him, more than anything and I wish we didn’t fight. I don’t know why we push each other like we do. We need it to stop, but I don’t know how.

Tears prick my eyes and I push my chair back from the table. “May I please be excused?” I ask, knowing I’m upsetting my mom by not talking to her.

“Baby,” my mom says at the same time that Dad tells me to go ahead and leave.

The table shakes slightly as I get up and don’t say another word, taking the escape Dad gave me.

I head straight to my room, wanting to sleep this night off until I can see Nathan tomorrow and try to make it right.

“Let her be. She’s a teenager,” I hear my dad say as I climb the stairs, holding on to the etched wood banister as I go.

My parents met when they were kids, but I don’t think they’d understand. I don’t even think they’d approve. So I don’t tell them anything and maybe that was a mistake.

I never did tell my family that I’d fallen in love only to have my heart shredded in a way that was unimaginable. I think my mom knew though. She could always tell when something was wrong. Maybe that’s why she hovered so much my senior year. Maybe it’s why she wants me to stay close. I’m her baby and I always will be.

Some things I can’t share with her though.

It’s a story that’s just meant for Nathan and me.

I wish I’d known how to talk to him back then. I wish I’d been smarter and known what he needed without relying on him to tell me.

Things could have turned out so much differently if we’d only known how to handle each other. But we came from different worlds and that was something we couldn’t help.