After my brother left, I went up to my parents’ room and sat on the bed. My mother’s memory had been scrubbed from the house, even her scent. All that was left were a few pictures that stood on the mantel in the family room. I waited on the bed until dark, but my father still didn’t come home.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I took it out to see Ryan was calling again. I still don’t understand why he stayed with me. I had never come out and told him that I wasn’t in love with him anymore, but he should have seen it. Instead he treated me like a sick child—his love a chicken soup for my lonely soul. But it seemed too cruel to leave him now. I’d end up married to him someday, I figured. It was the only way to justify my mother’s death.
I WANT TO HAVE A PARTY TONIGHT, I texted back, not wanting to actually talk. CAN YOU MAKE THAT HAPPEN?
For my birthday Ryan had skipped school with me and made me breakfast at his house. I spent the day going through the motions with a hollow heart, as an empty vessel. Sometimes I wondered if Ryan’s unconditional love could suffocate me.
WHO SHOULD I INVITE? HEY, ARE YOU OKAY? he responded.
NO. AND INVITE EVERYONE.
I didn’t wait for him to answer before heading to my room to grab clean clothes from my closet. The next forty minutes were a blur of shower steam and too much mascara. I wanted to forget tonight. Forget him. Forget me.
The party was in full swing, loud and smoky, when I was on the couch, laughing with a stranger. He had shaggy black hair and heavy cologne. He put his hand on my thigh. I told him to fuck off. And then Ryan was there, fighting. My head spun with a delicious mix of alcohol and danger, and I stood up and watched—not even telling them to stop.
The couch tipped back, taking the side table with it, lamp busted on the floor. Ryan had the guy by his collar, punching him in the face. I’d never seen him so angry—and in that moment I realized he was really angry at me. At my abandonment.
“Ryan?” I called weakly. All of my guilt, my pain, my sorrow, cracked the surface. The tone of my voice must have scared him, because Ryan immediately turned toward me, his eyes fearful. The other guy took the distraction as an opportunity, blasting Ryan in the side of the head with his fist—knocking him out.
My entire body stilled as I watched him fall, first his large shoulder connecting with the floor, and then the top of his head with a thunk. The party quieted, all except the song playing in the background—what was that song? It was one of my mother’s.
When Ryan didn’t immediately move, people started to murmur their concern; some went for the door right away. The guy, just some random fucking guy, spit on my boyfriend. He wiped the blood that Ryan had drawn off his chin, shooting me a hateful glare.
“Slut,” he said, even though my refusal of his advance contradicted his statement. Then he swiped his hand along the mantel, sending the framed pictures crashing to the floor. Smashing them into tiny bits of sharp glass and paper. I moaned and fell to my knees, my mother’s picture, broken.
It was all falling apart. I wanted my mother. I screamed it; I yelled it at the others as they stared at me, wide-eyed.
“I want my mother!” I shrieked uncontrollably, breaking the blood vessels in my eyes and tearing at my hair.
And then my father walked in. We never talked about what happened. He never asked if I was okay.
“Not cool, Dad,” Daniel says from across the restaurant table. He drops his napkin over his food and comes to take my arm to pull me up. When I blink, tears drip onto my cheeks.
“I didn’t mean that,” my father says sincerely. “Audrey, please—”
“Enjoy your dinner,” I say in a shaky voice, and let Daniel lead me from the room. It isn’t until we’re in the lobby that my brother gathers me in a hug, squeezing the breath out of my lungs before he releases his grip.
“Ouch,” I say, and wipe the tears from my face. “And thanks.”
Daniel nods and glances around the lobby like he’s not sure what to do with me now. “He didn’t know,” he says quietly. “I try not to blame him because he didn’t know that you were dying too.”
“He didn’t ask.”
Old pain haunts my brother’s features. Daniel is the one who saved me that night. He came home right after my dad and drove me and Ryan to the hospital to deal with his concussion. Ryan could barely look at me after that, like he had seen or heard some version of me that scared him. Eventually Daniel was the only person who looked at me at all.
My brother lowers his head. “Maybe one day you’ll tell Dad all about it.”
I smile sadly and murmur, “Maybe.”
In the movies there are always these poignant moments when people work out their misunderstandings, their miscommunications. But that’s not real life. In real life it’s hard to tell someone you don’t love them anymore. It’s harder to tell your father you don’t know how to live another day. My grief has stolen my voice.