As soon as the door was closed I saw my mother on the couch, watching me. Beside her sat a small silver oxygen tank and I tried not to look at the plastic tubing that snaked its way up to her nostrils. She needed it, I knew that. I just hated how old it made her look.
"You like that boy, Tash?" She asked, the corner of her mouth twitching with a smile.
"Yeah, I guess," I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.
"You guess, do you? Looks like young love to me, girl. You just be careful, OK? You're going to be a great mother some day, Tash, but we've already got one baby in the-"
"Mom!" I screeched, as heat rose in my cheeks. "It's not like that."
"Oh isn't it? Well it will be soon, you mark my words. I saw the way you two were looking at each other."
So someone had been watching us. "Do you have any ideas for dinner?" I asked, desperate to change the topic to literally anything else.
"I'm not picky, you make what you feel like eating yourself. Ray won't be home until ten so we can leave his in the fridge."
"Are you sure?" I asked, trying to coax something out of her. She wasn't eating enough. Ray had called the doctor and confirmed that our mother needed to halt the weight loss that had already started and we were all doing our best to address it with her gently, without making her feel like she was being bossed around or treated like a child. My mother was like me in that way - she couldn't stand being patronized.
"Well, if it makes no difference to you, I wouldn't mind using up the rest of that ham that Alisha cooked on Sunday. Maybe with some peas or beans? I put some in the fridge to soak overnight."
"Mom," I scolded, gently. "You don't need to do that. I'm handling it, OK?"
My mother waved her frail-looking hand at me, laughing. "I can still soak beans, Tash. You can't just let me do nothing, you know, I'll die of boredom."
I wished so much that she would stop making jokes about her death. I knew she did it as a coping mechanism but it made my heart ache.
"Alright, mom," I told her. "That's OK. Thank you for soaking the beans for me."
I headed into the kitchen with my mother's affectionate "Damn right!" hanging in the air behind me.
Chapter 9: Kaden
One of my teammates at Reinhardt got himself a serious girlfriend during the summer after tenth grade. They were still together and he was still an object of almost constant joshing from the rest of us. I think 'pussy-whipped' was our go-to crack. Getting to know Tasha was, for me, kind of a rude awakening to what an immature asshole I was being. Somehow the guy with the long-term girlfriend had become an object of jocular ridicule simply because he appeared to care about his girlfriend - about what she thought and what she wanted - and now that I found myself in the same unfamiliar territory, it got me thinking. And it didn't take long for my teammates to notice that what had been a succession of almost interchangeable, skinny-ass blondes had now become a single girl - Natasha Greeley - and that she was neither blonde nor skinny-ass. They started to give me some of the shit we'd given our buddy. It didn't bother me, because it wasn't really mean-spirited, but it was a learning experience being on the other side of it. I ran into Aaron - the dude with the serious girlfriend - after practice one day after taking a thorough razzing for leaving early to go and have dinner with Natasha and her family. As soon as he saw my face he busted out laughing and slapped me on the back.
"Shit, Barlow, now you know how it feels, huh?"
"Yeah," I replied. "I guess I do. I'm sorry, man. I didn't - I don't think I realized what a bunch of shitheads we were being."
"Don't worry about it," Brandon reassured me in that happily relaxed manner of his. "I was just the first one out of all of us to get into a serious relationship, you know? It's gonna happen to all of you sooner or later - and believe me, when it does I'll be there to laugh at your dumb asses!"
I must have had a weird look on my face because Branden suddenly changed his tone after catching my eye. "Hey," he said, "don't take any of that shit seriously, bro. They're still all caught up in being pussy slayers - we're about to graduate, they'll grow out of it."
"Oh, I know," I replied, slightly uncomfortable at the rather adult nature of the conversation. I was definitely more used to making dick jokes with the guys. "It's so strange, though, man. I honestly thought you were kind of...I don't know, faking it a little? Something like that? But now I'm with Natasha it just - things feel pretty different, you know?"
"Yeah, of course. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with banging a new girl every week, but sometimes you meet one and it's not like she's sucking you in or forcing you to do shit - it's just that you want to do it, right?"