Chapter 25: 24- Whatever Titles Those Fakers Want To Be Called

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24

I was in the kitchen helping my mom clean up the dishes. My sister was busy taking care of Liam. Blake was with my other relatives, talking. I was half scared on what they were going to disclose on him. I was mentally sending a prayer that it wasn’t anything embarrassing, or that they haven’t pulled out my mom’s albums of my childhood photos. They did that when Reese brought Dominic over for the first time and I just hope that they were wasted enough to forget about the horrifying album.

We were alone in the kitchen, wiping the glassware dry. My mother was holding on to a soft cotton towel as she wiped each plate and glass and passed it to me. I was on top of a bar stool so that I could reach the top shelf of the cupboards where mom places all of the cheap utensils that we only use once a year. I wasn’t that tall to be able to reach it.

“You and that boy, Blake seem to be cozy with each other.” My mom said as she passed me a ceramic plate. “Are you two together?”

“No mom.” I shook my head, placing on top of the cupboard shelf. “We’re just friends.”

“That’s what I said to your grandmother about your father.”

I stopped what I was doing to look at her. My father was a topic we never talk about. After what happened, he was on the other side of the line that we never ever cross. But now hearing my mom talk about it for the first and most likely the last time, I was more curious to hear what she had to say.

“Your dad…we were just friends at the start too.” She said and lowered her hands and I step down from the bar stool and sat on it. “We even promised to stay that way.”

“We were like the both of you, you know.” She continued. “We were stuck to each other, twenty- four, seven like we had slept on a bed of glue and woke up together.”

“Mom…”

“And everyone used to tease us non-stop. We’d look into each other’s eyes like we were each other’s world, like we wouldn’t be able to live the next without each other.”

I drop my gaze down to the wooden floor, shifting my weight from one foot to the other. I didn’t know where this was going and I had a big feeling I wasn’t going to like it. There was a reason on why we never talk about him, and now I was going to find out about it.

“And by the way I see it, that’s how you look at him.” She said slowly in a whisper like voice. “And that’s how he looks at you too.”

I didn’t say anything and so did she so went back up on the bar stool and started piling up the plates and cups on top of each other. When we finished keeping away the plates and cups, we stayed in kitchen. I knew my mom had more things to say than what she just had so I waited.

“Your father was a great person, Beth.” Mom said quietly.

“But he isn’t anymore.” I snapped rather harshly and I didn’t care. She knew how I felt towards him and I wasn’t the type keen on hiding it. “He isn’t the same person, mom.”

She sighed. She knew no matter how much persuasion she’ll try, how I see him will never change. He’ll always be a coward.

I pushed myself of the counter, ready to leave the kitchen. As much as I loved her, my mother was too nice to see how terrible of a person my father was. Sure, she was the one who filed for divorce but I always could remember the gleam in her eyes the last time we saw him. She forgave the asshole. Yet she was heartbroken after it. I was there to witness how bad she broke.

A few steps forward and my mom spoke again, pulling me to a halt.

“I just don’t want to see you end up like me Beth.” My mom said in a quiet voice, so quiet I barely heard her. “I want to see you happy.”

“Aren’t you happy mom?” I asked, my back still facing her. “Aren’t you?”

“I am.” She breathed out.

I turned around to face her. “Then what’s so bad about ending up like you?”

“Because I live alone.” She answered. “I know I have you and Reese but sometimes it gets lonely living here all alone. I don’t have my husband anymore to talk about things to. I don’t have him here to hug or to cry on when I need to.”

Her response made me angry. What was she trying to say? That I needed the opposite sex to make me happy? That I needed a he to be contented with my life? I may have struggled with my self-esteem growing up but I was sure of one thing and it was that I don’t need a man to be able to stand up properly and live my life.

“You don’t need a man in your life to make you happy.” I spat. “I’ve been living alone too, mom, and for years I have never had a boyfriend yet you don’t hear me complaining.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“And how will telling me all of this prevent me from getting hurt?”

If I was meant to get hurt then fate would find a way to do it no matter how many times it had to turn the universe.

“Beth.” My mom said in an infuriated tone. “You look at him like you won’t be able to live the next second without him, like he’s your oxygen and you need him to live. That’s what happened to me with your father and he left me.”

I didn’t like where this was going now. She was going to say something I’m not going to like. I can feel it, and I don’t want it to happen. My hands were shaking now so I placed it behind me to hide it form my mother and myself. My breathing became heavier, my breathes deeper with every second that passed.

“What are you trying to say?” my voice trembled as I spoke.

My mother sighed. “Maybe you should put some distance between the both of you. Take some time apart.”

I froze at her words, my breathing hitched as I try to register what she just said.

Space. “Why?”

“Remember when you were seventeen?”

I cringe as I remember my seventeenth year. “How can I forget?” I answered dryly.

“I don’t want to see you like that all over again.”

And I didn’t want to go back and go through that all over again. The amount of calories and weight I had gained over the summer I spent eating nothing but ice cream, cakes, and chocolate, and the bucket load of tears I had wasted made a shiver pass through my spine.

“You’re so dependent on him. I don’ want to see what will happen to you if you two break up.”

“I do not depend on him.” I snapped. I have worked so hard to become independent and now my own mother tells me I’m not?

“Honey, I know you’re not.” She smiled sadly. “You’ve been living alone for years now, supporting yourself without anyone’s help. You’ve built your own business and until now, it’s still running. Beth, you’re a strong and beautiful woman. You’re my daughter. I’m just telling you that whenever you’re with him, it seems like you two coexist with each other and without the other, you’re going to explode.  Look at the both of you now. You’re not yet even together yet you two act like a clingy old married couple.” My mom explained. “You’ve seen me break down already, you’ve broke down yourself and I don’t want to see that happen again. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Mom, Blake’s not going to hurt me.”

“I know he won’t but what makes you think circumstances won’t?” she almost cried out before calming herself down. “You two are perfect for each other. Everyone here can see that. I’m on both of your side here Beth. I want to see the both of you live happily ever after. Just don’t make the same mistake as I did.”

“He has a daughter.”

My mother’s eyes snapped toward me faster than the speed of light. Her eyes widened in horror. “Beth, please don’t tell me…”

“I’m not a mistress mom.” I rolled my eyes. “His, uh wife died.”

We both said nothing after that and I took that as a signal for me to leave the kitchen. But before I could fully leave the kitchen, I heard my mom said, “Just think about it. It’s better now when you’re not in a relationship than waiting for it to become more painful”

And as much as I didn’t want to, I did. I had a million things running through my mind, mostly about what mom had said. Did we really need the space? Would it really benefit our relationship? What relationship did we even have? As Blake had said, What I wanted it to be? I don’t know what I want anymore.

Was it really for the better?

So I have laid out the pros and cons of my mom’s idea.

Pros:

It would give us time to think things through

It would give us the chance to know what we really want

It would make us (more likely me) not to be more dependent on Blake- not that I am. I have been doing well by myself thank you very much.

It would give us the chance to grow and mature (sure, a twenty four year old and a twenty seven year old isn’t mature enough)

It seemed like most of these were bull crap you’d find online and hear from sappy love experts or doctors or whatever titles those fakers wanted to be called.

Cons:

I won’t be with Blake

We won’t see each other quite as much

We won’t talk as much

I’d miss him terribly

It’d break my heart to do so

I was too busy with my own thoughts to look where I was going that I accidentally bumped into someone.

“Sorry.” I apologized and looked up to see the person whom I accidentally bumped into. It was no other my favorite aunt carrying a glass of wine. “April.”

“Beth.” She nodded as a way to greet me.

“If you’ll excuse me.” I muttered and stepped aside to continue walking. I wasn’t really in the mood to talk right now and I’ll never be in the mood to talk with April, ever.

Before I could even make it a step away, she grabbed my arm and stopped my tracks.

“Your mom’s right, you know.” She said. “Listen to her.”

“And how long have you been eavesdropping?” I asked with confidence. I didn’t know where this newfound bravery of mine came from but I was sure as hell keeping it, well at least for now.

“Long enough.” She shrugged and took a sip from her wineglass. “She’s right, Beth.”

“Yeah? How would you know?” I snapped. I didn’t mean to sound so harsh but she doesn’t know me. She’s only been insulting me for the past two years and every time we talk, which only lasted for a minute or two, the only words that seemed to leave her mouth were words to disrespect me. And guess what? I’ve had enough. “You weren’t even here for dinner. How would you know?”

“I passed by you and your lover boy.” She said calmly, my tone clearly not affecting her. “And you two stick to each other like leeches.”

“Just spit what you want to say out April.” I snarled. “Stop beating around the bush. You never had that problem saying what you really want in face for the past few years.”

She took a large swig, finishing her most likely second or third glass of wine. “I want you to listen to Georgia and put some distance between you and hot stuff over there.”

“And why should I do that?” I laughed coldly. “And why should I listen to you?”

“You do not want to end up like your mother.” She stated calmly. “A pathetic woman who isn’t enough for her husband.”

My hand connected to her cheek, slapping her so fast that if I blinked, I would’ve missed it. I was breathing so hard now. It was a good thing we weren’t in the living room yet so no one saw that. I was fuming now, ready to tackle her down to the ground and rip her hair out and claw her eyes out of their sockets.

“Do not talk about my mother like that.” I hissed. “Who are you to talk?”

She retraced herself from my slap, her cheeks red but still kept her calm it was pissing me off even more. I started walking away. A few steps later, she spoke up making me stop.

“Your father was just like him.” She started. “He loved your mother dearly, made her see the universe in his eyes and then he got tired. He left, and your mother broke down, to the extent that she almost lost it.”

“Blake’s not like that douchebag.” I bellowed, glaring at her.

She smirked. “And how would you know that? He’s only going to hurt you in the end.”

“He won’t.”

“Just make sure he isn’t the center of your universe darling. Don’t put him up so high on a pedestal because once he falls off, he’s going to drag you down with him and you won’t even know it until it’s too late.” She said before walking away to the opposite direction. “That was the mistake your mother made.”

I watched her back disappear before stomping outside. I huffed, trying my best to clear my mind but it didn’t work. Everything they had just said to me, my mom, April…why were they so against Blake? My mom said she liked him yet she wants to put distance between us and so did April.

I actually didn’t care what the witch thought.

I dropped down to the ground, feeling the cold cement floor against the thin material of my dress. Then I remembered what my mom had said. Remember when you were seventeen?

My breathing stopped as quick memory flashbacks took over my head giving me a headache. Now I know why my mother was so persistent. When I had first met Blake, when our relationship started to grow, I was afraid of liking him and now there was no denying the fact that I really like him. I was scared that he was just going to hurt just like how my father did, just like how the boy I trusted did.

But as time passed by, I trusted Blake to not do the same and because of him I forgot how to be scared; I forgot what had happened that made me not want to fall in love.

However with Blake, I did fall and I do not want to get back up again because I liked staying there.

That was the mistake your mother made

The words rang in my head over and over again and I refused to believe that Blake would hurt me. I know he would.

But what if they’re right? What if you’re really so overly attached to him that in the end, no matter what, you’re the only one who’s going to get hurt?

I do not see my world in his eyes, right? Do I?

“A penny for your sweet thoughts?”

A voice interrupted my train of thoughts. I turned to look who it was; it was Blake leaning against the door frame with his hands in the pockets of his jeans. A small smile hung on his lips.

“I don’t want to rain on whatever you’re having here but it’s getting late.”

I pulled my phone out from my bag and unlocked it to check the time. It was almost a quarter till midnight. I placed it back in and stood up, brushing the dust that caught on to my dress.

“You’re right. Let’s get going.” I managed to form a small smile.

Mom was in the living room now along with my other relatives drinking wine. April was back too, her wineglass now full for another round.

“Hey mom it’s getting kind of late.” I announce, my voice surprisingly loud enough for her to hear despite the boisterous laugh of my uncle who was laughing at my aunt who started singing to Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball with Reese’s fourth grade spelling bee trophy.

“You two are leaving already?” mom asked. She was sad, her frown clearly showing it. “Already? It’s already dark out.”

“I have to get home mom.” I told her and she nodded. “I’ll visit soon. Promise.”

Her face lit up. “Keep that promise.”

“I will.”

We left the house just in time to hear glass breaking. I believe somebody just broke a vase.

“Hey Bethany.” Blake nudged me. “Do you know them?”

He pointed in front of us where two human silhouettes were seen by the cars, a boy and a girl. They were leaning on the car next to Blake’s, oblivious to our presence. I squinted my eyes to see who they were but couldn’t really make them out because the only light that we had was the moon and one lamppost that was on the main road which didn’t really give us much light.

As we got closer, I finally recognized them.

“Yes.” I answered.

“Hey!” the boy said. “You’re leaving already? They’re still drinking.”

“I don’t drink Seth.” I responded.

He shrugged and magically pulled a bottle of beer, taking a sip. His eyes landed on the person beside me, Blake.

“My name’s Seth.” He said, not even slurring a single word. He tilted his head to the girl beside him. “This is Halle.”

I don’t understand why people drink alcohol, especially beer. It tastes absolutely disgusting.

“I’m Blake.”

“So you finally brought your not so secret boyfriend.” Seth smirked.

I rolled my eyes and started pushing Blake towards his car. “Goodbye.

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First of all: NUMBER ONE IN CHICKLIT like what?!?!?!?! I was jumping with joy and wanted to scream out loud. Number one, holy effin twinkies. I had never expected for Sugar Rush to reach that high! Wow! I owe it all to you guys! I love you so much!

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