Life has never been easy, but... nobody ever promised me that, either.
Just yesterday, it felt like I was a young woman—a teenager. But suddenly I turned around and found that my life had passed me by, like a snowfall in July. And yet, even though time slips through my fingers, I'm in the same situation I was in for the last eight years. My name is ${Name}, I work as a ${Profession}. Just like it's never been easy, it's never been simple either. I struggled to put a life together for myself... and for my son, ${His Name}.
I was just a girl. A stupid girl who fell in love with someone who couldn't care less.
I guess I should start at the beginning. Once upon a time, I knew a young, handsome man that I felt comfortable with. He and I had grown together, attended school together, fooled around together, and he promised me the world. Instead, I got pregnant before senior year and had to get my G.E.D. He went to university on a football scholarship. After ${His Name} was born, I tried to find the young, handsome man I knew so well, but I discovered that he'd died. Drunk, he smashed a pickup into a sedan one night after he'd been accepted, killing himself and a family of five.
It was so surreal. I'd planned a life with him and I'd never get to say 'goodbye.' Back when I was pregnant, after my parents found out, they kicked me out of the house. I was lucky enough to get to live with my grandmother. I got a job and daycare as soon as I could. I moved out into a starter apartment that I'd discovered had bed bugs and roaches and broke down crying more than once just holding onto my baby and praying to the powers that be for something to change. ${His Name} was eight when I finally got out of those trash-fire apartments and forced my way into a better job.
Moving into a more humane and sanitary apartment, I started my life over for the second time. Now, it's just me and ${His Name} through thick and thin. I've had to get involved with his school more than once, I got involved with the PTA. I've had knock-down, drag-out fights with teachers who weren't doing their damn jobs. I've done everything that I could be expected, in regards to his education. But even that had to change, too. I wound up taking a second job for a while, to start him in a private school.
That may have been the best decision I'd ever made for him.
I love my son, very much. He doesn't have any extended family, he's never met his grandparents—not that they wanted him in the first place. He's got plenty of friends at school, and I know he's popular with the girls, which makes me anxious. Not for their sake, but for his. The way the world is these days, I'm worried for him. That someone will say something, get him in trouble, but to everyone else: he's an upright young man.
And I can't help myself but be scared for him. Scared for him... and at times, scared of him.
He's got a grown man's body. If we get into an argument, it doesn't matter how red in the face I get or how loud I yell when I tell him what he needs to be doing, but he just stares at me. Sometimes, I think he hates me. He's quiet lately.
Very quiet. Almost all of the time, around me.
I wished we talked more, but most conversations go like this:
"Hey—" I'd say.
"Hey," he'd reply.
"How's your homework?" I'd ask.
"Fine," he'd say.
"Great." I'd say.
"Yeah." he'd say.
I don't know what I've done to alienate him, but it feels like a running trend for me. Despite having the good apartment we've been renting for eight years, despite having a good-paying job and a son in private school, despite getting to this place in my life I never thought I'd be able to reach when I sixteen and knocked up... I don't feel like I have anything under control.
A constant miasma of anxiety surrounds me and I have to be ${His Name}'s emotional rock. Not that he relies on me for anything. He's old enough that I can send him down the street to get groceries without worrying too much. I still make sure he's got his phone... just in case.
He's big enough that I'm not worried about anyone messing with him. In fact, if I ever have to go somewhere I'm worried about that, I just take him. I just hope he never gets in fights.
He's smart enough that he'll probably grow up to be the owner of his own company or something, or maybe president—hell, I don't know. I just don't want anyone to trick him.
It's all so... exhausting.
Today, I did a lot of reflection on things at work. I'd decided that, when I got home—and I was gonna bring a treat from someplace—that all of that was going to change. I'd talk with him, really talk with him. Maybe he'd stop feeling like the stranger in my home.
That's what I planned on doing.
I got home on time, parking the car in the lot. I had ice cream. Mint chocolate-chip. His favorite. I put my arm through the bag's handles and bundled up my things from work and made it to our town-house style apartment in short order.
Once inside, I called out for him.
"${His Name}!" but there was no response.
He was probably out, I reasoned. He usually goes out when he can. So I put the ice-cream away and, feeling energetic, I started picking some things up.
I started downstairs, cleaning up the living-room and kitchen, and before I knew it it was done. Still no Liam.
I went upstairs, picking up the hallway and putting the laundry in the wash. Liam still wasn't home by the time I'd finished that.
I went back downstairs to cook dinner and when that was ready, Liam still wasn't home. It was getting a little late, but I wasn't ready to call him back from whatever it was he was doing just yet.
So, there were only so many rooms left to clean. My room was, essentially, totally barren. Not much to do here. So I went into my son's room to pick up and—sure enough, it was an awful mess.
Well what a treat, I thought, for him to come home and find that he didn't have a messy... kind of smelly room. Unfortunately for me, it really did smell. It smelled like a man. It smelled like a pent up man who spent way too much time masturbating in front of his computer. I grimaced, looking at the device.
Then I set to cleaning up.
All went well, until I found something shocking. I picked up, from under his bed, a wadded up pair of underwear. I wondered when he had time to bring a girl by and I was shocked to find that it... seemed to have a crusty emission bundled in the folds of the garment. I was even more shocked to recognize it as a pair of my underwear. They were satiny red ones, with black lace. I remembered buying them. I remembered that they'd went missing.
I stared at the evidence of something I couldn't even consider with wide eyes... then I quickly took it to the wash and put it in the washer there.
I came back to his room, stunned, and sat hard on the bed. Stupidly, I reached under his bed again.
There, I found more of my own underwear. And some of my socks. All given the same treatment. There were maybe nine such articles in all here. I didn't know how to feel about it. Not remotely.
So I took them to the wash. I took all of his dirty clothes to the wash and started that through. It was in the middle of this process that he came home, but I wasn't aware.
"Mom," his voice nearly made me jump as I finished putting soap and softener in the washing machine.
I slammed the lid and turned around. "${His Name}!" I said, forcing myself to smile. "Hi! Where were you?" I asked. "Did you have fun?" I added on pointlessly.
"... Did you clean my room?" he asked me.
My throat felt tense. I swallowed. "... Is there a problem with that?" I said.
He stared at me, a nearly disappointed expression on his face as he sorted his thoughts.
I felt nervous. Once again, I felt afraid in my own home. This... man was my son, but his shadow was much bigger than I was. If he were angry at me and couldn't control himself? Well, I was always told I was a pessimist. I tried to clear the thoughts from my head and prompt him to say something. Anything. And besides that, I fully anticipated that he was just using my underthings as a masturbatory aid not because of me, but because they were girls' underthings.
"${His Name}?" I prompted.