The Best of Fools (Jane Austen Book 2) (44 page)

I gazed toward the floor, pretending and hoping not to notice the tension rising between them.

She exhaled loudly as he adjusted himself on the couch. I really wanted to stay the night with him, but definitely didn't see that happening in her house. Problem is ... I didn't want to say goodbye again. Ever.

"You can't sit here with your little mate and act like everything is normal."

"Mum, I said—"

"No, Alistair. This is my house and you haven't appreciated a thing I've done. I'm losing my life because of you and I'm exhausted. Do you expect me to let this girl sleep in your bed tonight? You need help and assistance and this is too much for you right now."

"If you don't stop, I'm going to leave."

"Over a girl?" She tossed her head back and laughed. "Give her a few months and she'll give up on you."

He grabbed a tea cup from the table and flung it by her head. It crashed against the wall and slid to the floor in dozens of pieces. She gasped. Her brow lowered and her knuckles whitened as they rolled into fists. Alistair stared at her with a steady locked jaw and serious eyes.

"I'm only speaking the truth," she continued to dig her grave. "What sort of pretty young girl like this would want to be with a cripple?"

"This one!" I stood, my stomach whirling about and my blood on fire. Alistair tried to pull my hand back to the couch, but I yanked it up and shoved it in the air between his mom and me. "I want him. I don't look at him and see what you see. I see..." I turned my face toward him and looked into his eyes as I said, "I see the person I want to spend my life with and when I look at you"—I faced her again—"I wonder what kind of nasty mother says such horrible things about her own child."

She stepped toward me, then stepped back. "If you don't leave within two minutes I'm goin—" She broke down and fell to her knees, sobbing into Alistair's pants. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

What. The. Hell. Seriously?

He shoved his foot at her. "Get up, Mum. I'm not playing this game again. I'm going to Dad's." He looked up at me. "Can you take me to my Dad's?"

"No!" she screamed and shot back to her feet. "It's dangerous. I will not allow it. Does she know how depressed you've been? Practically sleeping all day for months?"

"I've been depressed because I missed her, but I feel a bit better having seen her and now you—"

"Does she know that I had to change your diaper early on? Would she do that?"

I wanted to raise my hand and say, "
She
is standing right here, you know?" But I didn't.

"Mum, I'm going to say this as nice as I possibly can," he paused, then wrinkled his forehead and screamed at the top of his lungs, "Get the fuck away from me!"

"I will not allow it. See, you're unable to manage your emotions. No. You're staying here. You need my help. Your father doesn't know the—"

"I am not a fucking baby! Yes, my fucking arm feels like jelly, but I'm not a baby and I'm bloody tired of you thinking I need you every second of the day. I can do more if you just let me." He hid his face with his hand. "And stop talking to my girlfriend like that."

She looked at him, then me, and started to speak, but decided not to.

Whew.

I clasped my hands in front of me and sucked in air. "Yeah. Oh, um, okay..." I rubbed my necklace and swept the Batman charm up and down the chain. "Um, so..."

"Go away, Mum," he said, hand still covering his eyes. "I'm sorry, but go away."

She dropped her hands to her sides and looked at me like she expected me to rescue her from the grave she dug. And I guess I felt sorry for her because I tried to reach out for her arm to tell her it would all settle down soon. But she scowled at me and rushed out the front door, screeching tires against asphalt as she drove away. You'd think perhaps Alistair's situation would've caused her to buckle up and drive like a normal human being, but I suppose love, even love of our own selves, makes us a little crazy sometimes.

I knew all about that.

Though I hoped to never become a nutcase.

I walked beside Alistair as he went to his room to pack his things.He fumbled around with one hand as he tried to gather some of his stuff, then he lifted his pillow and pulled out a picture of ... me. He seemed like he was trying to hide it, tucking it behind him to keep it from my view.

"What are you doing?" I said.

He turned and shrugged.

"You put my picture under your pillow?"

"No. Well, sort of. I keep it there and put it on the other pillow when I can't sleep." He sighed. "I'm sorry if that—"

"Shhh..." I stepped closer and gently wrapped my arms around him, worried I might hurt him. "No. More. Apologizing."

The walker was cold against my lower stomach, keeping us from fully embracing. He lifted his left arm and placed his hand on my hip, then ... his right arm lifted. It wasn't much. But it was something.

"You still smell like you," he whispered into my hair.

I so badly wanted to kiss him like we did the last time. Walls, tree houses, baths, suddenly they all seemed like distant memories and an intense feeling of mourning came over me. That part of us was gone. Or at least temporarily gone. The conversation we had before came to mind. The time he held me in the middle of the night and I asked if it would always feel like that. He said it will change and be new every time. Like falling in love all over again.

I felt that now.

He sat on his bed and rummaged through a drawer in the night stand. I thought of his mother, albeit a little looney, and how I was raised to never go to bed angry.

"Maybe you should stay here," I said, hoping he wouldn't yell at me like he did to Emma and his mom. "I mean, it's going to be hard to transition to your dad's house and your mom's right. She knows the stuff you need."

He continued sorting through papers in the drawer.

"Alistair, our last conversation wasn't a good one. Not terrible, but not the best. Imagine if something happened to your mom right now. You'd feel so bad."

He stopped. "What was our conversation?"

"Us?"

He nodded.

"We hadn't talked in a few days. We were both getting upset about it and just not handling it well. Then you got in your car and we were texting and that was it."

"What did you do?"

"I don't know." I sat beside him. "I feel weird talking about it. You'll think I'm a psycho."

He laughed.

He ... laughed.

He actually just laughed.

I wanted to hear it again. To see him smile. I wanted him to feel alive again and be the man I knew he was.

"Tell me," he said.

"Well, I called about seven billion times. Sent emails. Messages. You didn't get any of them?"

He shook his head. "To this day I can't remember my old email address or password. Two months ago I got a new cell phone. Went months without one. It was lost in the accident, I think. I never saw it."

"I hate that this happened to you. I wish it were me."

"Don't say that," he said. "I wish it were neither of us, but definitely not you."

"I even flew over here and went to your apartment flat."

"My apartment flat?" He chuckled. "I like that. Apartment flat."

I tucked my hair behind my ear and blushed.

He leaned his head toward me and whispered, "Jane."

"Alistair." Butterflies still existed. Calmer and sweeter, but still there.

My hair fell back from my ear and created a curtain between him and me. He twirled a strand in his fingers, pressed it back behind my ear, and kissed my cheek.

With his lips still against my skin, he whispered, "I've missed you so much," and sent shivers down my neck just like the first time.

Only better. Deeper. And more real.

He listened to me. Thankfully. And decided to stay. When we heard his mom come back in, I asked him if I could go talk to her first. He said I could, but before I went out to her he explained that she's not always like that, but she endured a lot with the divorce, his accident, losing her job, then her boyfriend, and to top it off someone stole her dog. I told him to come out and apologize after about ten minutes. I just wanted to show her my heart. I needed her to see that I wasn't just some girl looking to play the selfless martyr. I was just a girl who loved a boy and I refused to let obstacles screw me over.

After he prepared me for her depression and volatile emotional mood swings, I meandered down the hall and back to the living room. She jumped when she saw me and put her hand over her heart.

"I'm sorry to scare you," I said, feeling like a freshman forced to stand in front of the entire school on the first day. "I just wanted to apologize. I know you've been through a lot and what I said wasn't kind. Alistair does appreciate what you do and I appreciate what you've done for him. He wants to stay. And I'd like to get to know you better."

"I'm glad you reacted that way," she said, motioning for me to sit next to her on the couch. "I don't know how much Alistair has told you about his other girlfriends, but I can tell you one thing ... they were all selfish little things. As a mother you can just tell when someone really loves your kid. Those girls loved him on the outside and maybe for his music, but when you stood up for him I could see it in your eyes. Maybe that even scared me. He's all I have right now and I worry that he's finally found someone who loves him in a deeper way than I ever can." She wiped a tear from her face. "He's my only baby and he was always wise beyond his years. Grew up much too fast and I miss him. Having him back like this ... it wasn't what I expected. Or wanted. And he certainly doesn't want to be here like this. He's been gone since he was eighteen. Moved back to Bristol and now he's forced to come back to Mansfield and have his mother care for him in his early twenties. I know he's embarrassed and I knew about you. His nurses and I would joke that he was making it all up, thinking he fancied Jane Austen, but I saw the picture he keeps under his pillow and I knew. So I should apologize to you, Jane. I saw you in here and recognized you from the picture and I worried you would take the last thing I have." She cleared her throat. "I figured so long as he needs me, then I won't lose him. But it's not fair. I need to let him grow, even if that means away from me." She wiped another tear into her sleeve. "I'm sorry for rambling. I don't have many people to talk to."

"No, no, it's okay. I ... I don't know what to say."

"Say you'll love my son. Say you'll make him smile again. It's been too long."

"I ... I love him more than I've ever loved anything in my entire life. Being without him these last few months showed me that. I felt sick. Like a part of me died. I'm not stupid and I know I'm young and well, maybe I am stupid and don't know what I'm talking about, but I know that I love him." My voice trembled and cracked. "That I do know."

"I really am sorry for the things I said," she repeated. "I love him too. It hurts to see him go through something like this. I remember when he fell off of the bed when he was two and I put a little plaster on and kissed him to make it all better. And the first time he got his heart broken or got into a fight. I could help with those things. Make it better. I can't make this better. He may be a man now, but he'll always be my baby boy."

"My dad says the same thing to me. Well, except the boy part." I heard his bedroom door creak. "I don't want to take him from you. I have no desire to be his mother. I just want to be everything else." I smiled. "I'm half-kidding."

"Oh, I see why he likes you. That and the strange Batman obsession you two share."

"No," he said from the doorway. "I love her because she's everything I am and everything I'm not all at the same time."

We both looked at him, startled, and I smiled. It may not have been an image I imagined or could've fathomed a few months ago, but it was a beautiful one in its own broken way. I snapped a pretend picture with my hands and stored it away, hoping to add many, many more memories throughout the rest of my life.

His eyes turned up as his lips curved into a smile. His mom touched my shoulder and said, "Thank you." But I was still staring at the boy across the room. Who was still staring at me with a barely visible tear drop stuck in the corner of his eye. I stood, walked over to him, and kissed it away, tasting the salt of his tears as I closed my eyes and felt his love for me. No words needed. No kiss needed. Just ... him. We had officially fallen.

His mom insisted I call her "Mum," which was weird at first for several reasons, but I got used to it before I had to go. She let me stay in the house, but made me sleep on the couch. I woke up in the middle of the night to his breath on my face and his body against mine and I can't describe how perfect if felt, no matter how imperfect we were. He was gone before the sun woke up and I thought it was a dream until he smiled at me in the morning with a mischievous little grin on his face.

Our goodbye was dreadful. Tears and heart-twisting pains in my chest. But he promised and I promised to talk every day at least once. No excuses. No way around it.