Unbearable (the TORQUED trilogy Book 2) (38 page)

I snuggle against his side and then stick a pillow between us. “Let’s watch this movie.”

Just being with him, like this, with everything out in the open is by far the most relaxing night I’ve experienced in a long time.

I DON’T HEAD straight back to Eugene Sunday night. Instead, I sneak home to grab a few things from mom’s house. She’s outside watering her newly planted flowers in the backyard so I go back there to check on her. She’s been a huge help with Tyler too, and I know she’ll be around the shop and upstairs during the day to check on him for me.

Watching Mom in her own world is what I love most. When no one else is looking and she’s talking to my dad in the backyard. You know just by seeing her now she’s completely at ease. She says she feels him out there, mostly because she loved our backyard and he did too. They spent many nights on the patio together talking, so naturally she’d find strength where they spent time together.

“Oh, hey, honey,” she says when she notices me. Setting down the hose, she takes a seat next to me on the patio.

“How’s Tyler doing?”

“Seems good. He’ll probably need a lot of help tomorrow. I feel bad going back to school.”

She waves her hand at me. “Don’t, honey. He’ll be fine and I’ll take good care of him until you get back.”

I kind of laugh because I’ve never really come out and told my mom what’s been going on with Tyler and me, but she knows. A mother always secretly knows.

Her eyes move from mine to the table when a lady bug lands on her gardening gloves and stays there. She smiles softly, like it’s an inside joke. “Your dad used to hate lady bugs and grasshoppers. Any flying insect with wings made him scream like a little girl.”

I laugh too, because I remember that about him. My father was my hero in so many ways but if a bug landed on him, you’d think he was going to die.

“Since he passed, lady bugs always land on me. It’s like he’s telling me he’s always with me.”

“How do you manage so well without him here? I mean… I’m… I just can’t imagine spending your whole life with someone, raising a family with them and then having them taken from you so suddenly.”

She thinks about my question for a moment, tears flooding her eyes and I think maybe I shouldn’t have asked.

I fretted over my mom for months after my dad passed away last May. Nervously waiting for the breakdown and the moment I’d have to be there for her to pick up the pieces like she did for Red when Nevaeh died. But Mom has only ever showed strength.

“Things like this.” She points to the lady bug who hasn’t moved. “He’s all around me, in my thoughts, here in this house, the shop. He’s all around us and I just”—her hand moves to her chest, over her heart—“he’s here. Inside my heart. Your father possessed such a confidence about him you couldn’t ignore. Even before I really knew him, he had my attention just off that confidence. He could walk into a room and captivate it just by being there. When he passed, that feeling never went away for me. I can walk outside and it’s here, all around me. I can step foot in the shop and know he’s there, beside Red, giving him the strength he needs to go on.”

I smile, knowing it’s true. The lady bug that’s on her gardening gloves moves, flies around and then lands on my right hand.

“He’s with you too, Raven. He’s with all you kids.”

“Well then, why can’t he knock some sense into Rawley? Maybe turn himself into a spider and bite him,” I tease, trying to keep from crying.

Mom laughs, her cheeks warming with the gesture. “Rawley will come around when he’s ready. You just have to give him time.”

“I can’t believe you’re saying that after what he did at the shop.”

She frowns. “I’m not happy with his behavior, but with Rawley, forcing him to change his ways isn’t going to make him do it. He’s stubborn and he needs to do this on his own.”

She’s right, again.

“How are you and Tyler?”

I knew this was coming. Naturally she’d want to know since we hadn’t talked about him.

“I gave him a maybe.”

“A maybe?”

“Yeah. I didn’t want to fall into the trap of just having sex with him.” Normally I wouldn’t tell my mother this but we were opening up so I just kept going. “For so long I wanted to be with him. I mean, you know how much of a crush I had on him. My face would literally turn beat red when he’d come into the room when I was younger.”

She laughs, probably remembering me trying to come up with every excuse I could to go to the shop when Tyler first started working there. I wasn’t shy about it either. I’d hang out in the shop like I belonged there just to be around him. So yeah, Mom knew I had a huge crush on him.

“So what was the hold up on his part?”

“Well, he kept telling me he wasn’t in a position to fall in love. But then every time I came home for the weekend or a holiday, he wanted to get together. Then I wouldn’t hear from him. It got to the point where I felt like I was being used. I knew it and he knew it. I was his escape from all the shit in his life he was trying to avoid. So when it finally got to the point where I told him I was done, suddenly he wants to be with me. It wasn’t until after the accident that he told me he can’t have kids and that’s the reason he kept pushing me away.”

“Wow, that’s a lot. Wait, he can’t have kids?”

“It’s a long story but the short version is the medication he takes for his seizures caused him to be sterile. You’re right. It’s a lot and we’re a mess, so despite the fact that I want to be with him, I think we have a lot to work through before that happens. His greatest fear is that if we’re together and let’s say, ten years from now when I’m ready to start a family, then what?”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“There are other ways of making a family. I love him, and I know I can’t say how I’ll feel ten years from now about having a child of my own, but what I do know is I want to figure it out with him. I think it’s more important for us to remember that just because he can’t father the child, it doesn’t mean we can’t a family. There are so many options nowadays and there are plenty of kids in need of a home. Lenny’s proof of that.”

Mom smiles at the mention of Lenny. She absolutely adores her, as we all do. “Yes, she is. Blood doesn’t make you family, bonds do.”

She’s absolutely right on that. Friends are family too.

When you think about it, our presence in the world is tiny compared to the reality of it. It’s our presence in the lives of others’ that makes the world what it is. Every word we say, every gesture we make, every detail connects you to the presence you make whether you know it or not.

When bad things happen, there’s nothing you can do to change them or the circumstances you find yourself in.

I think it’s about telling yourself no matter what, you’re going to be okay. You can prepare, sure, but there’s some things in life you can’t prepare for, or how you’ll feel when it happens.

I’m used to being alone. I miss Raven and her constant laughter and the way she fills my apartment with her energy. Not having her here with me, my chest feels hollow and I don’t like the sensation or the fact that silence greets me so often.

When you’re dependent on others because you had your brain operated on, it’s surprisingly difficult to do even the simplest of tasks. My memory isn’t the best either so while I intend on going to the kitchen, I’ll get there and forget why I went in there in the first place.

One certainty at this point, not having a license is definitely for the better, because hell, I’d probably get where I was going and forget why I was headed there in the first place. I felt like my grandpa when he had a stroke and I was constantly driving to Portland or Seaside because he’d forget where he was going and I’d have to go get him and bring him back to Lebanon.

Luckily for me, I live above the shop and people are constantly checking on me. Usually Lenny.

So while I’m lying on the couch Monday morning, there’s a knock on my door.

It takes me a couple minutes but when I open the door in just a pair of basketball shorts, I’m expecting it to be her.

“Lenny, I told you I’m fine.” I look up; it’s not Lenny. It’s my mom. “Oh, what are you doing here?”

She frowns, clearly upset with me. “You’re my son, Tyler. I gave you space in the hospital, but you’re going to talk to me now that you’re home.”

I knew sooner or later my mom would show up and demand I talk to her. I’m actually surprised she waited this long. I figured when I bailed on Christmas with her and my dad she would have blown up on me. But she didn’t. She gave me time. I guess I should give her an opportunity, right?

I scratch my shaved head, but I don’t say anything to her. I know I’m being a dick but damn it, I’m still pissed off.

“That’s enough,” she says, pushing past me with a bag of groceries in her arms. She sets them on the counter and opens the fridge, probably realizing I didn’t need any of those because Raven took care of it. “You know, I get why you’re mad at me, Tyler.” Our eyes meet when I pause, just before sitting back down on the couch. “And I can’t tell you how sorry I am but I’m still your mother and I deserve some respect.”

I sit down on the couch and push the play button to the movie I was watching, completely ignoring her. I want to punch myself for disrespecting my mother this way.

Grabbing the remote from me, as if I’m a little boy, she turns off the movie. “You’re going to hear me out even if you don’t want to.” She sits across from me, right in the way of my movie. “When you were little, I didn’t care about what the side effects were because for the first time, you weren’t helpless and having seizures
every
day. Do you know what it’s like to not be able to leave your ten-year-old son alone because you’re afraid at any moment he can have a seizure and hurt himself?”

I shake my head, because while I’ve been the one having them, I don’t know what it’s like for others who witness it, just like they don’t understand my side of this. All I know is the lack of control I have, the sense of being helpless. The vulnerability that controls my life.

“When the doctors brought up the side effects of the medication, it wasn’t necessary to talk to you about it because you were so young. I don’t regret that. There was no need in telling a ten-year-old boy there was a possibility he might be sterile someday. All you needed to know was that for the first time in your life you had a chance to be normal. You had a chance to run and play just like every other ten-year-old. So your father and I, well,” she pauses and looks down at her hands, and then back up at me, “We just put it in the back of our minds. I think we both figured the time would present itself and we would tell you then. I know it’s no excuse and believe me, I
truly
regret not telling you sooner. But please understand your father and I
never
kept this from you in order to hurt you in any way. It was just the opposite actually. By the time you and Berkley finally got your heads out of your asses and decided to be serious, I was afraid. You were happy and it broke my heart that your father or I would have to be the ones to take a piece of that away from you. I understand it was a completely selfish act, but by not telling you, it protected us from having to be the person who hurt you.”

I snort, crossing my arms over my chest like the defiant shit I’m being. “What did you think would happen? Were you going to wait until I got married and then say, well, by the way…?”

“I didn’t say I didn’t make a mistake, Tyler. We love you. So much. I’m just saying we didn’t set out to hurt you and I’m sorry it happened this way. You’re the most important person in our lives and I hope eventually you can forgive us.”