It should have been no surprise that my mother showed up alone, but somehow, it was. She stood out in the corner of my vision. Her sharp pale bob catching my attention like a flash of light, standing in the entryway of the room.

"Mom," I said, and her eyes landed on me. An, unreadable look permeated across her face.

"Where's dad?" I asked. It was a question that already had an answer, sunk beneath the surface of her solemn expression. I tried to picture him and Aaron sitting in the car with the engine humming. Waiting to know if I were okay. But, if he were here he'd be standing right next to Mom. And he wasn't.

He was still in Houston. The tournament was ranked top on his priorities of places to be, and I hadn't even made the list.

"Jesus Kaya. What happened?" she asked, stepping inside of the room.

My mom could never answer a question without countering with one of her own. If she looked hard enough she wouldn't even need to ask. If she wanted to see, she would. It was right there in front of her. Every single day.

"Mom, I want to go home. Just take me home, please."

The best thing she could do in this moment was fill out the necessary paperwork to discharge me. I didn't need her to pretend to care. Pretending is what got us here in the first place. That was the difference between her and dad. I could depend on him for one thing. He never tried to act. What I got, I could take at face value.

I was never surprised.

"Mrs. Fischer, correct?"

My doctor had fulfilled his promise to return after equipping me with a pain reliever a couple hours ago. He stood at the foot of my bed, monitoring my current state, now that effects were starting to fade.

"Yes," my mother answered him as he stepped forward to extend his hand.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Doctor Ansari, and I've been the one taking care of your daughter this evening. She's been holding up quite well given the nature of her injury."

"I'm sorry," my mother's eyes fluttered as she blinked back and forth. "I'm still just trying to wrap my head around how this  happened in the first place. How did she get here?"

"I was told that it was young man who man the call. Presumably her boyfriend, it seems. They found her on the park path behind the neighborhood. According to the call,  he says she fell. It appears that she sustained a minor head injury as well, so we've been keeping a close eye on her to ensure that she's alert."

I could feel the burn of her stare on me, but I refused to meet her eye.

"Can I go home now?" I asked, although I had already  sat forward and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. At this point the Days of Our Lives theme song would be on replay in my sleep, the lift of the violin symphony, parading through my mind. 

"Shortly," Dr. Ansari said. "Just give us a moment as I go over proper rehabilitation methods, and we'll get you all set."

I didn't think I needed to be in the room for a recount of the same information I'd been given earlier: elevate the arm, no more than two pain killers every 6 hours, and ice every fifteen to twenty minutes.

There was nothing more to be said. All I wanted was to lie in my bed, and stare up the stars. They were sure to be there every night, although some were fading. Their edges peeling from the ceiling as the adhesive wore thin.

But, under those stars was the safest place I could be.

After Dr. Ansari discharged me with a prescription and a doctor's note, I took the key and wrapped it around my finger, crossing through the automatic doors. The moment the air hit me, it were as though the slumbering nerves in my arm sprung back to life. Like a needle injecting the feelings back into me that I was previously numb to. I spotted the car, sandwiched between a pickup truck and a minivan. If my arm were working, I would key the ignition and take off without a map in my mind to follow. Directionless with a low rate of surviving.

It was almost worth the risk. At least that way my injuries would make sense.

It took less than ten minutes for Mom to finish with the paperwork, as I contemplated the better alternative. All of a sudden she was sliding into the seat beside me. Her silence, a beckon for me to finish the conversation from inside that had, in her mind, been interrupted with a comma, instead of a period. But when I didn't make a move to fill in the silence, she took initiative.

"I still don't understand," she said.

If she still couldn't figure that out, than she never would. I don't know why I still bothered to debate with her anyway.

"Didn't you hear anything the doctor said?"

"That doesn't explain how you ended up in the hospital. My god we leave for a couple of hours.  And, where's Mason now? He didn't stay with you?"

"Did you see him in there?"

"Kaya...." her tone was short of a lit fuse as she said my name. "I am concerned. I get a completely unexpected call that you're in the hospital. So I rush here, weaving in and out of rush hour traffic. Cutting between the god-damn lanes just to get here and make sure that you're okay, and you can't even part your lips to tell me what happened?"

I didn't give her an answer for the whole way home. I let her talk to herself, let the silence build to frustration as she tried to fit the pieces together in her mind. Maybe that way, she'd come up with her own excuses, and I wouldn't have to. Before, I could fish my hand into the jar and pull out the right words, cohesively stringing them into empty phrases until they made sense in my mind. He didn't mean it. It was my fault. I shouldn't have...if only I'd....

I

Had

Nothing

Left

To

Give.

***

The house was awake when we pulled in, although no one was home. The office lamp beamed through the blinds that I'd tried to draw closed earlier, but had fallen slanted in an awkward position in the front window. It looked as if someone had let themselves in and made their presence known without uttering a word. I expected that to be what mom noticed first. That I'd had been trespassing through her office. But, that wasn't it.

She didn't say one word about that as we pulled into the driveway at the late hour. The hum of the ignition fell quiet as she turned the key, and directed her attention towards me. I kept my eyes trained on the glass of the window, watching her following moves through the reflection. Her hand moved forward, and came to a halt against the back of my head.

She ran her fingers through my hair, and I was instantly transported to the last time I'd felt a similar semblance of comfort. I couldn't have been more than thirteen, and I don't even remember what led to that moment. Perhaps it was because of some boy that hadn't returned my affection...or a  grade that would ruin my honor roll track record. Whatever it was, just her mere touch had taken it away. She didn't have to see the problem, as something to fix. All that mattered was she saw me.

But now, even as she stared right at me, she stared right through me. The image wasn't clear enough for her to see with true clarity.

I reached over with my good arm to let myself out of the car, shifting my weight against the door.

"Kaya," her voice called after me as I walked up the front porch steps. She reached me in front of the door, but my back faced her.

Why now? Why did it matter now?

"I'm going to bed mom."

I let myself inside the house and started for the stairs. It felt as though my arm were weighing down my body, as I ascended towards the bedroom, leaving my mother to her own swirling thoughts and assumptions. I hoped they tore into her without any mercy, relentlessly pulling at her until her eyes grew heavy with endless hours of insomnia.

Of course, somehow she'd make it about her. Wondering where she went wrong along the way. And then, it would be my father's turn next, as someone to cast the blame on. If only he hadn't dragged her to the tournament, this wouldn't have happened. If only he weren't so caught up in the fucking game. That's where her mind would cycle because that's really what got to her the most. It was never her intention to be the breadwinner, which is why she pretends she loves it so much. Overcompensation was her favorite suit to wear in the closet.

Maybe If I listened closely, I would hear her tossing and turning back and forth all night. Going over impossible scenarios that would have led to a different outcome so that she could brand herself as one of those good mothers, whose daughters don't end up in the hospital with boyfriends that abuse them. But unfortunately for her, she couldn't give herself that credit. There were no Mother of the Year plaques to display on her office wall.

I grabbed a few extra pillows that I'd buried in my closet before approaching my bed. Dr. Ansari's instructions repeated in my head as I made stacked the pillows atop each other, one by one. It was more effort than I expected, attempting to slide out of my clothes with one useful arm. I couldn't even lift my shirt off, so I left it on, climbing beneath the covers in a full outfit of clothing.

I bit into my lip as I struggled to raise my arm an inch off the bed, settling into a half-attempted position with my arm nestled into the pillows. As I shifted back and forth, there came the sound of approaching footsteps on the other side of the door.

I titled my head away, in the opposite direction as the hinges creaked open, folding my eyes shut. As far as she knew, I wasn't awake...which meant that I didn't need to say any more words to her for the rest of the night. I placed my breaths carefully, falling into a rhythm as her presence neared. A cold rush come over me, which took me a couple seconds to recognize as a bag of ice. I fought against blinking my eyes open, internally hissing as she laid the bag over my arm, and steadily elevated it. Much slower than it arrived, the shot of pain subsided into a steady throb once my arm laid at rest.

She pulled my comforter over my shoulders, and brushed a stray strand of hair off my forehead with her finger.

"Goodnight," she whispered. Darkness clouded eyelids as the light switch flickered off.

"I love you."