I blanche at the word boys.
If only she knew just how much we do for ourselves and have done for years, I think she’d see us more as men than anything else.
Kalen is already halfway toward the staircase, so I’m sure he didn’t hear her comment, and I have to wonder if it would bother him as much as it does me.
“Alright, see you in a few hours,” I say to Luna before I head down the hallway. I want to catch up to my brother, to find out why exactly he wants to see Mom.
“Sounds good!” she calls out behind me.
I roll my eyes and groan internally.
Even when Mom was lucid enough to acknowledge that she had children, she wasn’t as cheerful as Luna is.
It makes me wonder if it’s forced, or if there are actually people out in the world that can be so happy about their lives.
I jog up the stairs and catch up to Kalen just as he’s about to walk into Mom’s room, still astonished at the fact that he was serious about checking up on her.
“Hey,” I say to him softly as I grip him by the elbow and pull him back into the hallway.
“What?” he grumbles, shaking himself out of my grip.
“What are you going in there for?” I ask, nodding toward Mom’s door, then crossing my arms over my chest. Kalen looks away for a moment as his cheeks turn a slight shade of red, but when his eyes meet mine again, I feel like shit for stopping him.
There’s obviously something he needs to talk about with her that he probably feels he can’t with me, and I’m stopping him from trying to have the mother and son moment that we’ve both been desperate for, for years.
“I’m gonna take a shower then go lie down for a while,” I say to him with a kind smile and softer gaze. “If you need anything, you know where to find me, okay?”
He shoves his hands into his pockets and scuffs the carpet with the tip of his sneaker.
The same old ones he’s been wearing for damn near two years that are almost three sizes too small.
“Yeah.”
I inhale a deep breath and let it out as I turn and walk toward my bedroom, determined, above all else, not to let my little brother see the tear rolling down my cheek.
I’ll find a way to make everything okay again.
He deserves that much.