Weekend Write-In

made me numb

cheat

❝i don't even quite belong in your life

so, go

no, i don't want you to go

but i don't know what other avenue is open to us both

oh, what have i done?

giving you my guilt only made me numb❞

⸺ i wasted you, flora cash

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WARNING

Stream-of-conscious writing. Minimal editing.

SensitiveTheme.

Proceed with cautious.

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Mother's back was turned to me as she slowly packed her stuffs in her suitcase. The blinds were drawn, the shutter were turned, and the glorious Monday morning light was snuffed into a thin veil weakly crept through my bedroom window.

"What's he to you?" I asked. Mother did not answer. So I asked again. "What's he to you?"

"He's a friend,"

"He wasn't there for you when you didn't have a job." I said. "He wasn't there when we went bankrupt. He wasn't there when you were sick and tired and wanted to die. He was never fucking there, and yet you want to be there for him?"

"He's dying." Mother snapped. "If that's a man's death wish, I can't be cruel to him."

"You can and you will." Mother didn't flinch at my scream, didn't flinch when I grabbed her and made her look at me. "You've disappeared from the country for two decades, out of his life for forty years. You're not needed there."

"His wife and his children left him. I should be there." Mother hissed back. Instead of looking guilty, she dared to look insulted and angry at my roughness. I was suddenly filled with an urge to throttle her, to yell and rage and trying to grapple aloud with what was happening to my Mother. I want to ask what happened to the sensible woman in her? To the funny, witty, but always level-headed? To the loyal woman who was cooking while talking about devotion and family to me? My calm, sarcastic side would have time to mock and point out that perhaps the prep talk yesterday was a sign, but my current angry self could not comprehend anything but the fact that my Mother was going to abandon her family, to go back and see her University lover. My current angry self could not and would not understand any of her romantic talks, or her deep feelings for a man who I had never meet but had come to hate.

She was abandoning Father, she was abandoning my sister, she was abandoning me—people who laughed and cried and pulled her through at worst of times despite all her flaws and struggles—she was abandoning us for a man who was never there for her. Us, for a man who sang her a song and told her he regretted coming forward too late with his feeling. Us, for a man who phoned her forty minutes ago and rasped that he needed to see her for the last time and she immediately purchased a ticket for him.

"What're you trying to prove?" I said.

"It doesn't matter," Mother said. "You wouldn't understand." She shoved me aside and clasped her suitcase. I stood there, blocking the doorway, nostrils flaring. She swung the suitcase and stared at me.

"You're cheating on Dad,"

"Don't you dare turn that tone on me." Mother yelled. "It's not even cheating. I just want to see him one last time."

I wanted to cry. Yet, instead, but sadness burnt to white, blinding wrath as I screeched at her. My organs hurt, ached, and each word I spat out made me felt sick and nauseaous. "That's cheating, right there, Mom. How can you do this to us? That man—that dying man—outweigh the love to your children? To your present family? To Dad?" Tears and heat spilled from my eyes. "Dad loved you. He worked for you. He married you despite knowing you still love that man. And you're throwing that all away. For a stranger."

"I'm not." Mom said.

"He didn't even know you're going." I sobbed.

"You've never missed me when I go abroad before." Mom said.

"Because I know you'll come home." The cab swung into our driveway, and the rest of the argument died on my tongue because the pale look on my Mother's face told me enough. That I had become insignificant. My mouth opened, and then closed. I bit my lips at the last second and looked away.

Quietly, sullenly, I stepped aside and opened the door for her. She blinked, taken back.

I lifted my gaze and stared at her, jaws unconsciously clenched.

"I'll come back." Mom moved to hug me, but I snapped my teeth at her. She jerked back, wide-eyed.

"Don't," I whispered lowly, but I knew she heard me loud and clear. Her face hardened, and I braced myself for a slap.

But it never came.

I pressed down the automatic guilt and anguish bile that rode up my throat at her disappointed and wounded glare. She trundled out of the door and loaded her suitcase into the cab. She looked up at me one last time, her expression was distant and masked.

I turned away, slamming the door shut.