Come to Me Quietly(136)

Silence took us over while we sat together and let the truth sink in.

“Are you upset?” I finally asked.

“Am I upset that you fell in love with Jared or am I upset that you kept it from me?”



I winced, sensing her frustration, the disappointment, but there was no condemnation.

Finally she sighed. “Of course I’m not mad, Aly. I just don’t understand why you felt the need to keep it from me. For God’s sake, didn’t you and Christopher think I’d want to know that Jared was back in town? I worried about him for years, and it turns out he’d been hiding out at your apartment?”



She looked at me seriously. “That day when I stopped by… it was so obvious that there was something going on between you two… or at least that you both wanted there to be. But then you lied to me about that other boy.” She shrugged in something that seemed like defeat. “I don’t get it. When was I ever the mom you couldn’t confide in?”



“I’m sorry, Mom… but don’t you remember what it was like after Jared was sent away? It was like no one was allowed to mention him. Dad was so angry with him. Do you think Christopher and I didn’t realize he blamed Jared for finally driving Neil completely away? And neither of us knew how long Jared was going to stay. In the beginning, it really was just supposed to be for a few days while he looked for his own place. And then he just stayed.”



No doubt, because of me.

That place inside me quivered and swelled, crying out, because without him, I was so empty. It was his mark, the imprint he’d left behind.

I gulped around the heaviness in my chest before I continued. “Everything changed when he showed up at our apartment. It was like this crush I always had on him instantly became something so intensely real.”



A part of me realized that it’d become real the night when he was sent away, when I’d understood true heartbreak for the first time in my life at the age of fourteen. But maybe it took the two of us coming face-to-face as adults that brought it to fruition. Maybe it took our completion to shatter us wholely.

“He became my world, Mom. Living without him has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”



“I don’t know if I even want to know how long you were hiding this from me.” Fidgeting, she inclined her head, making it clear that she really did want to know.

“He was there for three months.”



I was always hiding things from her. And I still was because I didn’t know how to voice it.

“God, Aly.” She slowly shook her head, sadness coloring her words. “And I have to guess he left pretty quickly after I found him there?”



“Yeah, it all fell apart that night. He blames himself for all of it. He doesn’t believe he’s allowed happiness, so he destroys it the second he feels a flicker of it.”



I had felt him sabotaging us that night. He ruined us, just because he believed he was supposed to. “All it took was me telling him I loved him, and he was gone.” I figured I’d spare Mom all the details of that night because, in the end, that was all it really came down to. Jared didn’t believe he deserved to be loved.

Mom’s face pinched as she released a regretful sigh. “I’m so sorry, Aly, sorry that you’re going through this. Sorry for ever once giving you and Christopher the impression that I didn’t care about Jared or that we should forget about him. I did try to get him help. I saw him unraveling, but every time I tried to intervene, there was nothing I could do to stop it. I tried to convince Neil to get himself and Jared into therapy, but he was so wrapped up in his grief he couldn’t see anything else. Neil gave up on himself… gave up on life. Without Helene, he didn’t think he had anything.”