Unspoken.

Unspoken.


"I don't know Mama, why I feel like this. No one can seem to change it. Not even me."

My fingers tightened around the steering wheel, and I paused the motion to cut the windshield wipers on. The rain was picking up slowly, and the five o'clock traffic wasn't changing any. She adjusted the heat, said I wasn't trying.

"Mama, it's not that," I began to explain, my heart ringing in my ears, "It's like I know I'm sad but I don't really feel like I am. Or like I'm happy but can't say for sure that's true. It's like I'm these things and I am not, all at the same time--Turn here?"

She nodded, looked away, saying with a lost kind of look that made me feel like a bitter child, "Medicine won't fix that and neither can I…It's all in your head: Literally."

"That this malfunctioning is the neurons in my brain and the passageways becoming overwhelmed, confused, and scrambling?" A small nod. She meant the same thing I did.

They were failing to work properly. To be normal. To let me be who I'm suppose to be. My head started to throb.

"So you admit there's something wrong with my wires now?" I hissed a little. My eyes felt like rocks, and I focused on the road until the craters started to grow numb.

"No…I'll accept them," she clarified, "But it doesn't mean you can't be you and be happy or whatever."

"So…you understand that it's not like I do this on purpose?" I asked timidly, her blue-green oceans reflecting my hesitant complexion. I could feel the blood draining slowly.

For the first time, my Mother stopped in her tracks, the wheels behind her eyes seeming to screech to a halt; and looked at me with the same look I saw years ago, only at ease: Helpless.

"Having a disorder can never be fixed," she said quietly. "You can only live with it. And medication is there to help, but even you don't want that."

"But you believe me when I say I don't like it, right? That I wanna be like you…?" I felt my throat tighten. My foot applied more gas. The clouds looked lifeless, painted into the sky. The trees looked like washed pastels to an ole seventies movie. Ugly and unmotivated.

Mom stared out the window, and smiled a little.

Yeah, she believed me. Because she laughed and shook her head like only she did to signify she was happy.

"Mama, I know growing up is scary," I confessed to the taillights before me that growled for me to slow as well. "I feel like I'm not in control of the mess I can become sometimes; like its inevitable," I said to the girl next to me in the silver Volvo, staring at the phone in her lap. She looked pissed off. "And I know that being this way will always make life more sensitive and emotional than it should be." The car slid down the road, and I gripped the wheel. "Hell, I shouldn't cry at the birds. I shouldn't laugh at the storms. I shouldn't be this way, but I am." The rain pitied us none, and I bumped her hand to flip the wipers one setting higher as she did. "And sorry for cursing."

She folded her hands in her lap.

"…You sure do have a dizzying intellect," she mused like times before after a long moment.

It was my turn to laugh.

"Of course Mama, else, you'd never be on edge."

"You're the reason I have those few gray strands!" she exclaimed.

"But look how proud you are when you get them! Like,"-I mocked her with the most childish voice imaginable, failing when her age slipped my memory-"Oooh, look world!--my third gray hair at only thirty...thirty..eight? No. Seven? Mom how old are you?"

"Thirty seven, dingbat."

"And dad's going on thirty nine right?"

"Yes."

"Wow. You guys are so not old."

She scoffed, chuckling. My heart wavered.

We talked about groceries and prices; and by the time I pulled her car into the driveway, we hadn't spoke another word about the diagnosis.

I slit the engine.

"Like you always say, 'You are only You. And that's all anyone can ever expect from you.' So it doesn't matter in the end…"

I looked at her as she gathered her purse.

"Hey…" I said lowly, turning my eyes to my palms, "Don't let me forget that."

"I think I won't have to remind you," she smiled.

"Why?"

"Because you never forget anything. You just move forward."

I punched her upper arm; she slapped my forehead, and our lips held the sense of amusement. She made me carry her bags into the house as punishment for the emotional talk. I stole her Snickers bar and gave her the wrapper as a 'You're Welcome.'

She made me drive in the rain again the next day. Only she went off on her tangent of things to do, and drew on my arm while I drove.

"Be yourself," she said when I asked about why people change and blame others.

"What?"

"That's what you always say." Her eyes felt inquiring of my puzzlement.

"Oh…ok…?"

Her gaze slid into a blank stare.

"What did you eat for breakfast this morning?"

I thought. And thought. And thought some more.

"I didn't…"

She laughed, a haphazard kind of cackle, like she was watching me die off slowly and didn't want to believe it.

"We ate eggs together and you somehow managed to get some in my coffee!" she almost shouted.

"Oh!" I barked at the radio. "No…That was last week."

"That was this morning!"

"Why are you getting so angry?"

"Don't you remember anything about yesterday?!"

"We were driving all day, duhh. Doing stupid errands." I switched lanes. My head swirled.

"Don't you even--" she broke off, and stared out the windshield. "…Have you been eating regularly?" she hissed after five minutes. The clock said only one had passed. Screw the clock.

"Yes ma'am."

"Sleeping?"

"Been in bed by ten every night."

I felt uneasy, my stomach freaking out.

She thought. Her lips parted for a moment. Then sealed shut. She had that look that said a lot in just one blink.

"Do you feel like it's progressed?"

"What has?" I glanced at my eyes in the rear view mirror.

"Your disorder," she growled slowly.

"Oh, that…" I looked away from my caves of Autumn. "A little. I dunno. Why are we talking about this? It makes me uncomfortable. Hey, do you wanna grab lunch? I'll pay."

Her broken look slapped the smile off my face.

We didn't stop for lunch, but I did pay for the groceries. We were home too soon, and locked up in our rooms like bats in a pitch cavern. She didn't say anything when I asked for dinner, just kept moving.

Sighing, I left my own seclusion in my clothes, and fortified my new one under my covers. I fell asleep to the oldest song, the first my mother and I shared, and thought about what she said till my eyes didn't know if I was asleep or awake.

Into The Ocean.

Author's Note

A vague conversation I remember having months ago.