Fear of Falling(112)

“Mom, give it up. You don’t have to pretend to care. Not now, when you didn’t care when it counted.”

She rolled her eyes and let out an annoyed breath. “What are you talking about? Of course I care.”

“Really, Mom? Did you care about my 4.0 GPA for the past six semesters? Or my early acceptance letters to half the colleges I applied to? Or how about the fact that I missed my class trip to the water park because I am freakin’ terrified of what could happen? Did you care about any of that?”

“Don’t try to turn this around on me. You still need to explain why I found a joint in your sock drawer.”

“It’s not mine,” I lied. I was just glad she hadn’t found the rest of my stash. Lately, it was the only way I could get through the night without jerking awake from another nightmare.

“And what were you doing in my sock drawer?” I glared at her.

“Never mind that,” she said, her accent sounding thicker than usual. “You can’t get out of this one, Langga. You can’t manipulate me like you do everyone else.”

“Manipulate you?” I glowered. “Like everyone else? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Mmm hmm. Want to make everyone believe your lies. Want them to think I’m a bad mother. Now you’re on drugs? And don’t think I don’t smell alcohol on your breath every weekend.”

I rolled my eyes. She was doing it again. She was imagining things, being paranoid. Sometimes I thought she was seriously delusional. “What lies? You aren’t making any sense.”

“I see how they look at me. I see your friends’ mothers whispering about me. You’ve told them. You’ve told them about me, haven’t you? You can’t say things like that. We’ll have to move again. Is that what you want?”

I took a step towards her with the intention of soothing her. She really was losing it. “Mom, I swear. I haven’t said anything.”

She turned from me to make her way back to her bedroom. Back to her side of the apartment where she could wallow in her misery alone and forget the burden of my existence. Before she made it to the doorframe of her room, she looked back at me and shook her head, disgust and pity in her slanted, brown eyes.

“You’re just like him, Langga. Just like your father.”



Slow, concentrated pain surrounded me at every angle. I couldn’t escape it. It held me prisoner and refused to let me go, sluggishly creeping over every inch of my body. The shit just wouldn’t pass, just wouldn’t move on. It just kept slowly driving its way deeper into my skull, making the task of opening my eyelids seem flippin’ impossible.

“She’s waking up!” I heard Angel gasp. “Dom, go get the nurse. Hurry!”

Light pierced my eyes, its intensity serving as tiny, razor-sharp daggers to my retinas. I wanted to cry or at least cringe, but even that hurt.

“The lights,” I hoarsely whispered. God, my throat was sore. “Kill the lights, please.”

Once the lights were comfortably dim, I slowly peeled open my eyelids. The room was bare. Sterile. Cold. I was in the hospital.

Angel looked at me with a hopeful smile. She looked horrible as if she hadn’t slept nor groomed in days. If she looked like that, then I must’ve looked like Death with PMS on a Monday.

“What happened?” I managed to croak. What the hell was wrong with my throat? It wasn’t just scratchy; it was sore and stiff.

“You don’t remember?” Angel asked with horrified eyes.

I shook my head just a fraction but it felt like I had just given myself whiplash. “I remember…what happened. But…what happened to me? What did he…”

“Here she is,” Dom beamed as he walked in, a man in scrubs right behind him. A young woman dressed in penguin-adorned scrubs followed.

“Miss Duvall, how do you feel?” the man I presumed to be a doctor asked, picking up my chart at the foot of the bed.

“Ok, I guess.”

Doctor Lovett, who had been the one to perform the surgery to repair my small, yet worrisome, skull fracture two days ago, performed a series of simple tests to ensure there wasn’t a lag in brain function. The bandages hugging the circumference of my head, as well as the ones on my face, were itching like a bitch, but he insisted I leave them be.

“Dr. Ramini, our resident plastic surgeon, will be in to talk about your options.”

“Plastic surgeon? My options?” I wanted to frown but the medical tape pulling my skin was like cheap, bootleg Botox.

“Miss Duvall, you suffered quite a bit of cosmetic damage to your face from the attack. Since the swelling from your head injury has subsided drastically, I think it’s safe to go ahead and proceed with Dr. Ramini once we get the appropriate scans done. I assure you; he’s the best in the state.”