Fake Marriage Box Set

He was professional as he said his goodbyes, and I helped mom through the hospital. The family wasn’t in the waiting room anymore, and I was almost relieved. I wasn’t sure what I would have done had I seen them.

Mom leaned against my arm as we returned to my car. Six months echoed in my head, a constant reminder that was itching at my consciousness and telling me to say something, anything, to my mother. But she remained quiet as I helped her in the passenger seat and pulled the seatbelt across her body.

Sitting behind the steering wheel felt different somehow, and then I realized everything felt different. Mom hadn’t been right; for the first time in my life everything wasn’t going to be okay. I gripped the wheel tightly and started the car, peeling out of the parking lot and onto the highway with more speed than mom was used to. I needed to fill the empty space around me with anything, and turned the volume on the radio as high as mom’s ears would allow it.

We both remained silent for the majority of the ride until I merged onto the exit for our neighborhood.

“Dr. Lemonis said every case was different,” she reminded me. “We can’t forget that.”

I lowered the volume until just the barest music could be heard. “You’re seriously not trying to put a positive spin on this right now.” She always did this at the worst times possible.

“Why not?” She smiled. “Gavin, your anger controls you. Don’t let it get the best of you, not this time. Everything happens for a reason, and we’ll figure out what this reason is soon enough.”

I opened my mouth to argue against her naive encouragement, but Dr. Lemonis’ voice echoed in my head again with six months. I didn’t want a memory of arguing with my mother in the car, just as much as I didn’t want to plan her departure in six months.

“You’re right.” I reluctantly gave in. “I’m sorry, mom.”

“Don’t be, sweetheart. God’s given us a shitty hand to play with, but it’s all we got so we might as well play them,” she said. Karen was waiting outside her house when I pulled into the circular driveway.

“How are you feeling?” she immediately asked mom as I helped her out of the car.

“A little thirsty,” mom said. “I’m just going to get a cup of water.”

“Let me get that for you, Ms. Hayward.” Karen tried rushing into the house, but mom shook her head.

“I can still do things on my own, damn it. And I’m going to pour my own cup of water.” She entered her house on her own. Karen glanced at me, possibly expecting me to put some sense into mom, but instead, I told her of the prognosis.

“Oh heavens,” she breathed. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Hayward.”

I didn’t have the energy to correct her. “I think mom is trying to get some independence back,” I said. “It might be best to give her some.”

I followed Karen into the house and found mom leaning against a kitchen counter with a water cup half empty and a puddle dripping from the counter toward the wood-stained floor. Karen immediately wiped it up, but neither of us said anything about it.

“I love you,” I said and kissed her forehead. “I’ll see you first thing in the morning, okay?”

She pulled me into a hug, her arm reaching around my neck as her skin shivered from the cold. I watched in the corner of my eye as Karen started a fire in the living room.

“I love you so much, my Gavin,” she whispered in my ear. “So impossibly much.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” I whispered back. I pressed one last kiss against her forward, said goodbye to Karen, and returned home.

I had two missed calls from Ron. I threw my phone onto the couch, not particularly caring if it got lost within the pillows, and slammed my head against the door to my liquor room. Six months? What were we going to do? My fists met with the metal door, slamming into it as if it was the same punching bag in my gym. My knuckles grew bloody, and my skin tore with each hit, but I didn’t stop until I was out of breath.

I opened the door and stepped into a room 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the house. I picked an unopened bottle of bourbon and a smooth glass from a corner shelf and sat at the bar beside my kitchen. I poured an ounce, drank it, and then another two ounces.

For the first time in my life, I had no idea what I was going to do.

Chapter Four

Maddie

We didn’t have many ingredients to use for lunch in our kitchen. In fact, all I was able to scavenge was a tuna sandwich, half a pickle, and the crumbs from a bag of vegetable chips. At least there was half of a protein shake from breakfast that would keep me full until dinner.

I prepared my lunch and sat against the wall in our dining room, reading over my most recent text conversation with Martin. He hadn’t been very happy to learn that the previous weekend hadn’t even gotten me a thousand new followers, and we were trying to pick a new trend to replicate that might get me more attention.

My phone rang just as I was reaching the end of our conversation, and I answered it just as Ron, my cousin, asked if Nancie was around.

“You know if you want to talk to her you could just call her directly,” I said. “She knows you have her number.”