Page 44 of Becoming Us

He tapped his fingers against his thigh. The silence stretched too long.

“What happened between you and your mom?”

“Nothing.”

“Noah, you promised not to lie.”

I shook my head. My eyes burned, and I touched the feeling just long enough to shove it deep down. Tucked it into a box where it couldn’t hurt me.This wasn’t happening. I wasn’t feeling anything. This wasn’t real.

I inhaled deeply. “It was just a fight.”

Tap. Tap. Tap.

“Your mother—she’s not a bad person, Noah.”

All you do is take, take, take.

Push it down. Don’t let it slip.

“She just never learned how to handle her frustration.”

Tighter.

“When she’s upset, she might say things she doesn’t really mean?—”

“Some things can’t be unsaid.”

He exhaled through his nose. “What did she say?”

“What’s the point? She’s never going to apologize,” I muttered.

“She’s been trying to reach out?—”

“No. She’s been pretending it never happened, trying to buy my affection. But she’ll never admit she did anything wrong. Heaven forbid…” I stopped, clicked my tongue, and shook my head. “What’s the point?”

No one ever believed me. A teacher once told me I was being dramatic. My therapist said I was projecting. And Dad—he always took her side. Always.

What was the fucking point?

“The point is that you’re depressed.”

I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head.

“You haven’t been eating. You haven’t been sleeping. You’ve been drinking and using drugs.Cocaine, Noah. You’re fifteen. You’re just a kid,” he said, and though his voice cracked, there wasn’t any anger. Just worry. Fear.

There was something pressing down on my chest—something heavy and invisible. That was the only explanation for the way it ached to breathe.

I kept my eyes closed.

“This isn’t nothing. It’s eating at you. And if you don’t face it, hijo, it’s only going to get worse.”

I wanted to argue. I wanted to say I’d tried. But what if he saw it too? Whatever it was she saw in me that made her pull away.

Maybe I was too much. Maybe I was making it out to be worse than it really was.

I bit down hard on my lip.

“I’ll talk to the therapist if you want me to,” I whispered.