A FEW DAYS AGO, I got a call from the hospital saying that my mother was apparently on a hunger strike and has been sending back unopened food. And so I was forced to drop everything and walk down to the hospital to talk to her. When I got there, she didn’t say much, but after some persuasion, I watched her eat, making sure she took everything down before leaving for my late shift at the garage.

Now, a day later, I get another call from the hospital. A nurse tries to keep her voice as calm as possible as she explains that my mother has been refusing to eat since the day I left and how it’s obviously taking a toll on her and causing complications in her recovery. Because in order for her to take the meds, she needs to eat.

“I’ll be there,” I say before pocketing my phone with a deep sigh. This can’t become a pattern. If I lose time on shifts then I lose money, and it’s all a vicious cycle from there.

As I start to clean up and put the tools away, the boys look over at me overtly. Logan is the first to speak. He walks over to my station. “Jem. What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say, shrugging on a jacket.  “I need to leave. Cover for me?”

Logan nods, but I don’t miss the worried gaze he exchanges with Eli, who looks up from what he’s working on. But I don’t have time to de-code whether it’s concern or something else before I walk out of the garage.

It’s a cold ten minutes as I walk to the subway, bits of snow descending from the sky. When I reach the hospital, Celia, one of the head nurses in the unit, must see that I’m not in the mood to fill in forms, because after I sign in, she says, “I’ll fill in the rest. You can go through.”

With a brief nod, I’m already heading to Ma’s room, clamping down on my jaw so hard I’m surprised I don’t chip a molar. And when I enter the room, my hands tucked in my pockets, my mother meets me with a guilty expression, like she knows exactly why I’m here.

She’s quiet for only a brief moment before she speaks.

“I want to go home.”

Ma was never one for miscommunication. That’s it. The reason she's been refusing to eat is because she wants to go home. But one look at her pale face, and I’m shaking my head no. She’s plugged up by countless machines, an IV and God knows what else. 

“You can’t,” I say, clipped. “Your treatment isn’t over yet.”

“Jem,” she says, her voice strong, almost desperate. “I want to go home.”

I stand my ground. “No.”

Her silver eyes turn glossy. “Call your father.”

My jaw clicks. “He doesn’t have a say.”

Confusion laces her features as she furrows her brows. “What?”

Fuck. I’m the worst liar in the fucking world. I avert my glance. The line on the heart monitor at her side jumps up and down erratically. “I mean, I make all the decisions from New York. He's informed about the important ones. It’s easier.”

There’s a moment of silence. I can’t stand to look at her — because we both know it’ll take very little to convince me.

I sigh. “We can’t afford someone to take care of you at home, Ma.”

Her cold hand encloses mine as she gently tugs me closer. “I know, baby. I don’t want someone to take care of me.”

Sitting at her side, I settle elbows on the bed as I bury my head in my hands. “You can’t do this alone. You need someone to help you. And I—”

“You’re busy with college, I know.” She sighs. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Then—” 

“I can’t stay here forever, Jemmy,” she says. And I know by here she doesn’t mean the hospital. Maybe I do know that she can’t stay forever. Maybe I don’t care. It’s fucking sick. She can’t do this. She can’t give up. 

My mother’s silver eyes are striking. “Let me go home, baby. I just want to go home.”

I get it. She’s tired of this place. The white walls and the sterile smell no matter how many bouquets she gets — always cold no matter how high they turn up the heating and the food is bland and repetitive. It’s not living, it’s surviving. I get it. But is it selfish to think that I’d rather have her here, surviving, than not have her at all?

But then a tear falls down her cheek. Ma’s been through a lot of shit, but I haven’t seen her cry in a long, long time. And when it happens, something inside me cracks beyond repair.

I can’t meet her in the eye. Can’t stop the knot in my throat from growing. I nod stiffly. “Fine.”

She breathes in slowly. And out. Lifts a hand to the corner of her eyes. “Thank you.”

I swallow even though my throat's still dry. “So the hunger strike is over?”

She smiles gently. “I didn’t do it to make you worry, you know. Another one of those chocolate pudding cups and I would have ended it myself.”

I shake my head and force a smile, when in reality I want to punch a fucking wall. This is not happening. This is not fucking happening.

I appease her with a minute more conversation before I leave the room, shutting the door behind me. Then I meet with the resident doctor, who begrudgingly allows her to be discharged. He tells me that it’ll be hard, and that she needs to keep track of her meds, and I want to ask him what are the chances if she does this? If she gets discharged?

But I don’t ask because I don’t want to know the answer.

Later that day, I open up the door to my mom’s apartment, dusting snow off the shoulders of my jacket. I spent a lot of my childhood in this place, in the basketball court a few blocks away. I met Eli on that basketball court, and then the rest of the guys at the garage.

Before Ma got sick, I decided to stay in the city, moved in with Eli and enrolled in NYU. I wanted to continue studying, and it made Ma so happy to know that I was. If I hadn’t dropped out, I’d be a year ahead of Mason. If I’d just swallowed my pride and let my father fit the medical bills. But it’s too late to wonder what could’ve been different now.

And I can’t speak too much about it with the guys, because I know, without a shadow of doubt, that all of them, especially Mason, would offer to cover it all for me. And I can’t let them do that for me. It’s my responsibility. Not theirs.

Right now, I’m hacking like a motherfucker because everything in here is covered in a thin layer of dust. My phone rings at the worst of times, and I pull it out of my pocket to find Logan’s caller ID flashing on the screen.

“Yes?” I grit out, my voice hoarse and throat scratchy from the rising dust.

“Where you at?”

I hesitate slightly before answering. “I’m clearing up my ma’s apartment.”

There’s a brief pause on the other side. “Why?”

I huff and rest my first against the doorframe. “She wants to move back in.”

Another pause. “Okay. You need help?”

I want to say no, but he’s actually semi-decent at this sort of shit. Logan has awful handwriting and organisation skills, but he’s actually good at keeping the garage clean. His shit may be cluttered, but it’s always grease-free.

I clear my throat. “If you’re not busy, then yeah, man.”

Minutes later, Logan shows up with fresh stock of cleaning supplies. And Ace —who’s sipping on a tiny box of chocolate milk through an equally tiny straw.

I frown, gesturing to the delinquent. “Why’d you bring him?”

Logan shrugs. “Figured you needed reinforcements. Plus he was at my place.”

Ace’s green eyes light up.  “If you wanted a personal maid, you could’ve just asked, Valentine.”

I roll my eyes. “Shut it.”

Then, Ace starts sneezing. Three in a row. Guess the dust in this place really is horrific. I’d feel bad if it wasn’t exactly what he deserved. Ace curses after his fifth consecutive sneeze. “What the fuck?!”

Logan grins, handing me a duster and throwing one at Ace, who dodges it with a look of horror. “Finish your milk and get to work, Moreno.”

Ace is about to respond, but a sneeze gets him before he can. And then another. He groans. “I need a fucking tissue!”

*

ON CHRISTMAS DAY, I WALK INTO my mother’s apartment to the smell of food. And although it smells pretty fucking great, it doesn’t stop me from meeting my mother with an accusing glare. She’s only been discharged for two days, and she really isn’t meant to be overexerting herself. And from her flour-stained apron, it looks like she’s been doing the exact opposite.

I shrug off my jacket at the entrance. We did a pretty great job with the place. It’s dust free and sparkling and with Ma in here, everything is alight and thrumming with heat and energy. It’s like she never left. And after an ice-cold walk in the snow, the warmth of my mother’s apartment is like butter on toast. “Please don’t tell me you cooked?”

She offers me a stilted smile. “Oh, this? It’s just something small.”

Spread on the table, there’s turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and vegetables. It’s clearly not a little. If she was going to be stubborn and insist on cooking then I could have at least helped her, but she didn’t say a word.

I shoot her a perplexed look. “Why do we have so much food?”

Ma shrugs nonchalantly. “I invited Ace and Logan over. I heard that they helped clean up. It’s the least I could do.”

“It really isn’t the least you could do.” I frown. “You invited them and they said yes? Doesn’t Logan want to spend Christmas with his mom?”

“He said they’re spending it in New Jersey and he’s staying in the city because he already spent Thanksgiving with his mom. And that he can’t say no to me. I was already halfway done with all the cooking by then.”

How does she know more about my friends than I do? “Okay…”

I poke my hand out to steal a roasted potato but before it goes any further, Ma slaps my hand away and tells me not to be rude. She goes to sit, and just as she does, there’s a knock at the front door, and she pops back up again.

“Jesus Christ, Ma, sit down,” I order, pushing down on her shoulders. “I’ll get it.”

I swing open the door to reveal Ace wearing a white button up, holding a casserole of what looks like cheesecake, and Logan with a maroon sweater and a giant vase of flowers. Bits of snow are melting in Ace’s dark curls, and there’s a generous dusting on Logan’s shoulders, too. The sight is so jarring that I wordlessly step aside, letting them in.

My mother stands again, so clearly not listening to my order for her to sit down for two seconds. “Oh, you boys are so sweet! Ace!”

“Aunt Jules!” Ace shoves the cheesecake into my hands as he rushes into my mother’s arms, hugging her so tight I’m about to snarl at him to take it easy. But my mother couldn’t care less. If anything, she hugs him back just as tight. If not tighter.

Ma, for some reason, loves Ace. I’m pretty sure he visits her alone sometimes. I let it go, because as much as I claim the boy annoys me, he’s one of my best friends. He lost both his parents as a kid, and his grandfather raised him, so maybe I’ll make fun of him now and then, but in a way, he’s like my little brother.

Right now, Ma’s pinching his cheeks like he’s a baby, when in actual fact, he’s a foot taller than her. I shake my head handset the cheesecake down, reaching for a beer.

“Logan, get over here,” Ma says.

Logan walks over and Ma hugs him fiercely, holding him away from her to look at his face. She narrows her eyes. “Do you model?”

Logan grins. “No.”

“Well,” Ma says, “That is one pretty face.”

I swear Logan fuckin’ blushes, too.

Finally, we sit down to eat. I drain my beer and reach for another one. Logan and Ace won’t stop talking shit. They’re obviously taking liberties knowing that I’m not going to tell them to shut the fuck up right in front of my mother.

“I know all about Ace, but how did you meet Jem, Logan?”

“At the garage.”

“I drop by sometimes.”

“College must be keeping you busy.”

Both of them go quiet.

Ace stuffs his mouth with potatoes. “Jem, what happened to your hand?”

I glance down at my bruised knuckles. “Nothing.”

Ma’s eyes go wide as they drop to my hand. “Oh my god, he’s right. Jem, what happened to your hand?!”

Sighing, I dish out more slices of turkey. “Nothing.”

Ace fakes a cough. “Indigo.”

I pass him a glare.

Ma perks up. “Indigo?”

“She’s pretty,” Ace says.

“Oh I know,” Ma says, “I’ve seen her.”

At this, both Ace and Logan just stare at me.

“You took her to see your mom?” Logan murmurs quietly.

I offer them a flat glare. “Yes.”

Ma chews back a smile. “Why didn’t you bring her to see me again?”

“She’s been through a bad breakup,” I murmur, “I think she needs space.”

After I probably broke her ex’s nose, I figured I needed to stay away until I could clear my head. Until I could make sense of it all. I doubt what she needs is another violent asshole in her life, and by not keeping my cool, I’m worried that I might’ve blown it.

The question falls from my mouth before I have the chance to think about it. “How long after a breakup can you get with someone?”

“Never been in a proper relationship,” Ace says, stuffing his face. “But I’d say a day. You only live once.”

I roll my eyes, glancing at Logan instead.

“Six months,” Logan says, giving Ace a concerned look.

Great. I’m taking advice from a manwhore and a virgin.

But even if I take the average of those two, I end up with three months.

I look to my mother. “What do I do?”

She just forks a piece of chicken into her mouth with the slightest smile. She tilts her shoulders in the slightest shrug. “You let her make the choice.”