Page 20 of Every Sunset

MAX

“What happened?” Logan asked as we both stood side by side, watching my mom practically sprinting to the cottage.

She went inside and slammed the door behind her as I just stood there, a little in shock.

My mom had never yelled at me like that before.

Sure, I’d made her angry. I was no saint, but even when she did get mad, she never yelled.

I was pretty sure it was because what I knew of her childhood had involved a lot of yelling and violence from her father.

He’d been a real asshole, not that I knew much about him.

My mom rarely spoke about her childhood, but I knew enough to know she had to have been strong as hell to have gotten through it.

“I pushed too hard,” I sighed.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m worried about her. I don’t think she’s really sleeping, and I never see her eating.

She looks like she’s ill, and that’s bad.

She had a kidney transplant. All of the doctors told her she needed to take care of herself, and she’s not, Logan.

I can’t lose her,” I admitted quietly. She was all I had, and she was all of the family I needed too.

She had been the most amazing mom to me for as long as I could remember, even though she was still a kid herself when I was born.

She’d never had anyone to rely on. No family or friends.

She’d never had anyone to help her, but you would never know it.

I had a childhood filled with happy memories of crazy adventures and fun times.

Maybe we never had much money, but I never went without anything.

She loved me enough for a mom and a dad, and I knew she would do anything to protect me, but I was becoming an adult now.

I was twice the size of my mom, and I wanted to protect and care for her like she deserved.

I just wished I was doing a better fucking job of it.

“That’s not gonna happen, bud. I don’t know what happened to your mom, but she’s obviously going through something right now.

We just have to try and help her through it.

Madd and I are trying, but she’s a stubborn woman,” Logan laughed, but when I looked over at him, the smile on his face was forced, and I could see the worry there.

I wished my mom would allow him and Maddox to get closer to her. They wanted to be there for her, and she needed that, especially right then. Logan had no idea how much of an understatement his words were.

My mom had gone through hell in that one weekend I had been away from her, and now I was pretty sure those days of terror lived in her head, replaying over and over again.

Her nightmares proved that, as did the way she seemed to just space out and stare blankly.

She jumped if I touched her when she was like that, and I hated the way she’d look to me with nothing but pure fear for that first second as she came back, before she realized it was just me.

“Yeah,” I laughed flatly. “That she is. I should go and check on her. I’ve never seen her act like that. My mom doesn’t yell,” I told him.

“She looked exhausted. Maybe try and get her to rest?” Logan suggested as he placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder.

I had only known him and Maddox for two weeks, but I liked them.

As I’d told my mom the other night, I trusted them too.

They were good, honest guys and they seemed to genuinely want to look out for my mom and I, even though they barely knew us.

I just needed my mom to believe that too, because she was not in a good place, and as much as I wanted to be, and tried to be, I knew I could never be enough to take care of her the way she needed.

I didn’t understand what she needed the way Logan and Maddox seemed to.

She just needed to give them a chance, but who could blame her for being afraid to do that after what that fucker had done to her weeks before?

“I will,” I agreed with a nod. “I should go and talk to her.”

“Go ahead. I’ll keep your food warm. Just yell if you need anything. Madd and I will be on the patio,” Logan assured me as he nodded to where Maddox already sat at the table, on the patio outside their mammoth house.

“Thanks man.” I walked across the grass towards our new place, worried what I was going to say to my mom.

She had been so pissed with me and I knew I had pushed her too far.

I needed to apologize. She had been right when she said she was the adult.

I did it because I was worried, but the way I had spoken to her hadn’t been fair.

I’d treated her like she wasn’t capable when I knew she completely was.

She was just having a hard time, like Logan said.

I needed to go easier in my efforts to help her.

Pushiness clearly would not work, and it had been disrespectful of me to treat her that way.

When I got to the door I hoped like hell it was unlocked, since my keys were back at Logan and Maddox’s, in my backpack. I tried the handle and breathed a sigh of relief when it wasn’t locked, but when I tried to push it open, something blocked it.

“Mom?” I called through the tiny gap I had made, and I tried to push again, but stopped when I realized the thing behind the door was likely my mom. What else could it be?

“Mom? Answer me!” I yelled louder. Terror gripped me when there was no response.

Had she blacked out? Was something more serious than her just being tired going on?

If she was sick it could be bad for her transplanted kidney.

She took pills to suppress her immune system, so when she got sick her body didn’t do much to help her fight the illness.

She’d had an infection a few months back that had almost turned into pneumonia.

She’s spent a week in the hospital on intensive antibiotics just to get her over it.

I was freaking the fuck out as I turned to the big house and yelled to the guys loudly. I saw them both start running towards me as I again tried to push the door a little more, but it wouldn’t move now. I couldn’t hear any noise inside and that terrified me.

“MOM?” I yelled as loud as I could.

“What’s wrong?” Logan asked as he ran up beside me, Maddox right behind him.

“I…I think mom’s on the floor be-behind the door!” I gasped as tears filled my eyes. I slammed the heels of my hands into them and tried to rub away the wetness before it fell.

“It’s gonna be okay. Just breathe for me,” Logan said as he wrapped an arm over my shoulders and pulled me back from the door enough so Maddox could get closer. I watched as he dropped to the ground and pressed himself as close to the gap as he could.

“Anna?” he said softly. “Anna, can you hear me?”

When there as no answer again my heart started to pound even harder and more tears filled my eyes.

“What if she’s sick?” I gasped as I fought to speak through my panicked breathing. “Did she pass out?”

I couldn’t lose my mom! I had been so terrified when her kidneys failed.

We’d been through so much with her having to go to dialysis while we waited for a kidney match.

Then the surgery had been terrifying. The doctor had told us there was a chance she’d die on the table, all be it small.

Those hours I waited for her to come out of that operating theatre had been the longest and most scary of my entire life.

Then when I found her at our place, covered in blood and screaming at the hands of that monster who tore her apart…

“Max!” Logan’s sharp call pulled me from the memories of that night and I turned to him with a gasp. “Your mom will be okay. Just breathe, kid. Please just take some breaths.”

“I’m going around the back!” Maddox called, but he was already running past us.

“I…I’m okay. Help my mom, Logan. Please…make her be okay,” I pleaded as I pushed away the arm he had around me and started to follow Maddox around the house.

I told myself over and over again that my mom was strong, and that she would never leave me.

I knew I was probably over reacting, but my mom had always been so tough through everything.

Even after the major surgery she underwent, even when she was too weak to walk to the bathroom, she’d reassured me she would be okay at every opportunity.

For her to not answer me – not tell me she was going to be fine - it was wrong.

I just needed to hear her tell me everything was okay, but she wasn’t doing that.

MADDOX

My heart only started to pound out of my chest harder as I looked through the back window and saw Anna laid on the floor, right behind the door.

She was pale and curled up tight. I could see her shaking from where I stood.

She hadn’t blacked out, but it certainly looked like she had checked out.

She hadn’t responded to me when I called to her, nor to Max, but it was clear from the tears on her red cheeks that she wasn’t unconscious.

Maybe it was some kind of break down. I didn’t know any technical terms, but I certainly knew what it was to just give in to the pain within you and just check out, and I was pretty sure that was what was happening to Anna.

“Madd?” Logan asked as he and Max appeared from around the corner.

“She’s conscious, but she’s not okay. I’m going in through the back doors. We’ll fix them later.” I didn’t even give Logan time to respond before I moved to the sliding glass doors and wrenched the right one open so hard the lock broke.

I ran into the guest house and fell to my knees beside her, wincing at the pain of the damned prosthesis sitting awkwardly beneath me.