Ritual - Palm South University

“It’s not.”

She frowns. “It’s just… you don’t seem like yourself since we came back to school. I know I was busy with Kip and his dad over the summer, so I’m sorry if I wasn’t—”

“You don’t need to apologize, I’m fine,” I clip, shoving my shit into my gym bag with more force than necessary. I don’t know why I’m pissed that she’s asking if I’m okay when, clearly, I am not, but for some reason, it fires me up. “I gotta run.”

“Bear…”

“I’ll see you around.”

I don’t look at her again, don’t let her get another word in before I sling my bag over my shoulder and start the walk across campus to the Omega Chi house. Most of the guys drove, and a few of them offer me rides, but I decline, looking forward to the alone time.

When I pull my phone out of my bag, there’s a few missed texts from Becca wishing me luck on the game. She’s at work, and her last text asks if I want her to come over after. I don’t answer, switching instead to the missed text from my little brother.

Clayton: Call me when you get this.

My stomach drops. Clayton is still living with Mac and his family in Pittsburgh, and though I’m happy he can be with his friends, and I know from my time spent with them that there’s no better place for him to be than at Mac’s, it still hurts to be so far from him and know he has no one in our family.

I dial his number from my favorites list and plug my headphones into the phone jack, popping the buds in my ears just as he answers.

“Hey,” he answers, and I can tell by the sound in his voice that my stomach lurching wasn’t for nothing.

Something is wrong.

“Hey, Little Bro. Sorry I didn’t call sooner, was at an IM game.”

“You clobber them?”

“Naturally,” I answer. “What’s going on?”

I get straight to the point, and Clayton sighs on the other end before I hear what sounds like a door closing and then the faint sounds of him being outside.

“Mom messaged me.”

My heart stops, along with my feet, and I stand frozen for what feels like an hour in the middle of the sidewalk trail that leads around our circular-shaped campus before I find the will to speak.

“What the fuck do you mean, she messaged you?”

My mother had disappeared the fall semester of my sophomore year — immediately after I’d given her two-thousand dollars, thanks to Skyler’s help — and she’d taken my older brother, Carleton, with her. Other than them occasionally checking in with Carleton’s wife and two sons, none of us had heard from them. I had seen his kids more than he had, and I’d given up on ever seeing Mom again. Hell, I’d lost every ounce of care I had left for her when I realized what she’d done to Clayton.

How could she just leave him there? He was alone, staying on Mac’s couch until his parents really took my brother in and made a new home for him.

What kind of mother could leave her teenage son like that, without so much as a phone call every now and then to check in?

“I mean, she messaged me. She’s on Facebook now, I guess… she made a new profile.”

“What the fuck did she say?” I ask, and already I’d pulled over to one of the benches near the reflection pond, plopping down and pulling up Facebook on my phone. I search her name, gulping when her profile comes up and I realize she sent me a friend request, too.

“She just said, ‘Hey, son. It’s Mom. How are you?’” Clayton answers, and then he pauses a moment. “I just got the message late last night, around three in the morning or so. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t respond. I wanted to talk to you first.”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, swiping through the few photos she’d uploaded. One is of her on a beach, the other is in front of some old, run-down house. She’s somehow even thinner than the last time I saw her, and she’s cut all her hair off.

My heart breaks at the sight of her frail form, of her sad, drugged-out eyes.

But then it hardens right back up, remembering what she’d done.

“Don’t message her back,” I say finally, grabbing my bag as I close Facebook and resume my walk again. “Not until I figure out where she is and what her intentions are.”

“Okay,” he says, not arguing, but I can hear the disappointment in his voice.

“I know you miss her,” I say on a sigh, eyes rolling up to the sky and fists clenching at my sides. I want so badly to hurt my own mother, and I know what a twisted, fucked-up thing that is, but I want her to know this pain we’ve felt as her kids. “Just let me figure out a few things first, and then you can talk to her if you want. Okay?”