I can tell she doesn’t want to talk about it, and I know what it’s like for someone to try and pry dark secrets out of you. What sucks is that I always told Mika the stone cold truth. She saw it. I took her into that hell and she saw what I went through.
It didn’t change the way she looked at me. It didn’t change the way she loved me. It didn’t change a fucking thing, and it made me love her that much more. It’s also the reason I knew I was the one who had to walk away when reality came crashing down.
She’d hate me by now if I had made her live through that hell until the day my mother finally died. I couldn’t just leave her though. She might have not deserved me looking after her, but I couldn’t have dealt with the guilt if I hadn’t done all I could.
My father? Well, when he dies, he can rot in hell with no guilt on my end. At least my mom kept me alive when I couldn’t fend for myself, and she also made sure I had clothes, even if they were ratty and used.
“So what’s up with your parents?” I ask quietly.
“Dead,” she says without looking at me, and I grimace.
“Sorry.”
“Dad’s better off. He had a stroke just before I turned eighteen and he usually didn’t even know when someone was around. He just died within the past year, but it was a blessing. He didn’t want to be like that. No one does.”
She says it like she’s detached… emotionless. I’ve never heard her sound like that. This is the same girl who cried over a random dead bird we found on the roof one summer. I had to bury that fucking bird and let her say a prayer for it.
“I always liked Milton,” I say softly. “He never treated me like the James boy.”
“Until he told you that you weren’t good enough for me,” she says coldly.
“That wasn’t on him, Mika,” I say on a heavy breath. “We were living in a fantasy bubble and you know it. I don’t want to go back to that conversation. What happened to your mom?”
She tenses, and her lips thin like she’s pissed. “She died. Nothing special about her death.”
She’s twice as cold this time, as though she’s angry at me for even asking while not giving a damn about her mother’s death. It’s actually a little disconcerting.
“That’s vague,” I point out in a very non-abrasive way.
She shrugs. “I don’t want to talk about it. How about your parents? How’d they die?” she asks with the same chilly edge, as though she’s trying to verbally stab me for asking about her family.
“Mom finally overdosed. Dad isn’t actually dead. Just in prison. He finally ripped off the wrong guy. As far as I’m concerned though, he’s dead to me.”
She nods stoically, as though she’s drifted into another place. Definitely need to shift this subject. I feel like I’m losing her.
“Where all have you worked? I finally got to look you up, since I had your pen name. Saw the publishing thing started a few years ago.”
“Five years ago,” she says softly. “It’s the only job I’ve had. Mom wouldn’t let me work anymore when I lived there. She wanted control over my money so that I couldn’t save any more up.”
She sighs heavily, and I cock my eyebrow.
“What about college? Where’d you go?”
She looks up at me with pain in her eyes that I don’t understand.
“I didn’t go to college. Why are you asking so many questions about my past?”
That really makes no fucking sense. Why wouldn’t she go? She never talked about college, but it’s because we only talked about the impossible future we dreamt up. Without that dream, I wouldn’t have made it through my early teen years.
And five years? She only got her first job five years ago? As a writer? She never showed any interest in writing anything but letters to me.
“Just trying to learn a little about what happened to you after me, Mika. Why is college a sore spot?”
She doesn’t answer. She grows increasingly irritated by the second. When she starts biting her nails, I frown. She never chews her nails. Or didn’t. She always talked about how disgusting it was.
Trying to stop thinking about who Mika was versus who Mika is isn’t an easy task. I shift the conversation again.
“How about you and Aidan? You two seem tight these days.”
Her look softens, and a small smile curves her lips. “We are tight. Aidan’s had my back for a while now. Maybe he’s had to have it too much, but I hope not.”
Cryptic. Vague. Annoying.
“I feel like I know less about you the more we speak rather than getting to know you better.”
Her smile drops again. “What happened to you after me? Before you left this place and found your own life?” she asks calmly, as though she’s proving a point.
The difference is, I’ve already told her about all my scars and it doesn’t faze me to tell her again.