Chapter Twenty

                                    

                                          
♔ Chapter Twenty ♔
                          
"Mum?"
                          
The sound of shattering glass echoed through the house and into the foyer, where I stood. Footsteps, hitting the marble flooring, getting louder and louder. It was the distinctive clacking of heels, picking up the pace, until finally, she was standing there.
                          
Her shoes were the first thing I looked at, out of instinct. My eyes scrolled up the rest of her slowly, taking her in again. She was a gloriously extravagant woman, one of those rare and fabulous people that seemed so superior to everyone else simply by what they wore. Her hair, with a straight line fringe, was an inky black and gently flowed down and beyond her neck like a Scottish waterfall trickling into a gorge. 
                          
She had adorned herself in the largest and most ridiculous fur coat I had ever seen, bright black, with a prim grey dress-suit underneath. Then I reached her face, her eyes. They were exactly like mine, a brooding brown. They'd hardly changed, since the last time I saw her. Eyes that looked a thousand years old. She had a soul even older, but with the body of a well-kept woman in her early thirties'. My mother was a woman who was wise well beyond her years, but yet at the same time, as clueless as the day she was born.
                          
It felt good to see her, in a way. It was almost like she was a reminder of my old world, when I would laze around, where I would have no real problems or troubles holding me down. Looking at her, seeing her face, it shone a reflection of who I used to be back at me. I'd been trying to get back to that person ever since I lost him, but it only got harder to find myself again.
                          
Things and life were always changing, and I was one of those few people who couldn't keep up. I'd never learned how. So I'd let life pass me by, lost in the endless possibilities of my own self-loathing. It was a downward swirl, like a tepid waterfall cascading into nothingness. That was what my life had become now. I'd just been falling, ever since Tom's death.
                          
I'd been spinning deeper, never stopping, never trying to be anything else, anything better. If anything, I let myself become what I was now. I'd accepted it, before it even happened. I let it happen, and so the voices in my head would ask me, what kind of right do I have to feel upset about this, when I brought it on myself? I brought it all onto myself. Inviting Isaac back into my life, fucking Sawyer around, hurting him. Fucking Fletcher's secret boy toy, what happened in that alley. Maybe I brought it all onto myself.
                          
My mother and I stood there for a while, just staring at each-other. My mouth was clasped shut, the sight of her alone making me feel strange. I hadn't seen her in so long that I didn't know how to be around her anymore, how to act around her. I didn't know how to approach her, it was almost like we were two different people. Strangers, that was what it was. Like we didn't know each-other at all.
                          
That was when the tip of her long cigarette, held delicately between her fingers, shook, dropping ash to the floor. I watched the smoke in the corner of my eye, dancing up and into the ceiling, to be scattered away by the fan. In that moment, she spoke.
                          
"Darby," she said, her voice echoing through the empty foyer. The cigarette dropped to the floor, but she didn't seem to care. She took a tentative footstep towards me, her golden Fendi heels clacking as she did. Her eyes never left me, like she'd expect me to vanish in the blink of an eye. The look she gave me was almost as if she was looking at a ghost, a mirage - like she couldn't trust her own eyes, when she saw me. "You're here."
                          
"I am."
                          
"You're really, really here," she continued. Her hands reached out, her nails long and bright red, like blood. I itched at the thought, all over, barely managing to stand still. My skin prickled. My whole body was crawling inside of itself. Her hand touched my face, cupping my cheek. It slid down to my shoulders, squeezing me, making sure I was really there. As soon as she realised, she grabbed me and wrapped her arms around me, holding me there, cradling me. She held me so tight, the fur of her giant coat encased me in her warmth.