mistake, I see as an opportunity to learn.” I pause. “You won’t be any less of a mother if I live my life differently from what you had planned.”
“Sometimes we hurt people even when we’re not trying to.” Mom’s voice wilts at the end, like a flower too tired to hold up its petals.
Thinking of how I inadvertently injured my parents makes me wince.
Is it my fault for accidentally hurting them? Or their fault for being unintentionally hurt?
Sometimes it feels like a never-ending cycle of who-hurt-who. It’s like a carousel with no start or end, and the more I try to make sense of it, the faster it goes. The dizzier I get.
I hurt my parents by taking the set list and leaving. They hurt me by not letting me live my own life. I hurt them by not being an obedient daughter. They hurt me by not recognizing I was a different daughter from the one they wanted.
Sometimes I think there’s so much blame to share, but other times I think there’s very little blame at all.
Maybe we can be right and wrong at the same time.
Maybe they cancel each other out.
And then, like an island appearing on the horizon, impossible to avoid, I picture Dad. Dad, whose heart and soul was in the music I stole. Dad, who I still haven’t spoken to. Dad, who I hurt probably most of all.
My hurt doesn’t cancel out what I did. It can’t.
Because what I did feels unforgivable.
“I don’t want to fight,” I blurt out, like I’m in such a hurry to erase the darkness coiling around my thoughts. I also don’t want Dad to hate me, even though he probably does.
“I don’t want to fight either,” Mom says with a sigh. “I miss you, Harley. And I wish you’d call me once in a while, or send me an email. I feel like we’re becoming strangers, and I hate it.”
I think about what Chloe said—about ignoring my friends when I get busy. Is that what I’ve been doing to Mom, too?
She doesn’t wait for a reply. “I’m worried about you. I’m worried this is going to be like what happened last year.”
My defenses go up like hackles on a werewolf because talking about November is too personal. And when people use it like a weapon against me? It will always feel too personal. “Why? Because I’m happy? Because I’m not calling you a million times a day, or asking for help, or complaining that things are going wrong and you were right all along?”
“It’s just—with you—these things can be a warning sign. And I missed them last time. I didn’t know what was coming.” Mom clears her throat, and I think she’s trying not to cry. “I don’t want to miss anything this time.”
I fight the burn in my face. “Happiness is not a warning sign. It doesn’t have to be. It doesn’t get to be something only other people have.”
“Of course not,” Mom says. “But sometimes you spend so much time chasing this idea of happy that you crash at the first sign of disappointment. It’s like your expectations are never realistic. You want everything to go exactly the way you’ve mapped out in your head, and when they don’t, you spiral.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I argue. “You haven’t been here. You haven’t seen how hard I’ve worked. Because things haven’t been going the way I planned—not at first. I spent weeks making popcorn, for crying out loud. The lead trapeze artist refused to train me. I stayed up until midnight almost every single night just to practice on my own where I wouldn’t get yelled at. And I didn’t give up like you and Dad said I would. I kept working, and trying, and sticking with it. And now I’ve got an audition for a chance to be in the show and—” I stop myself. I didn’t mean to tell Mom so much. I didn’t want her to know there was still a chance everything could go wrong.
I bite my lip, salt stinging my eyes.
“Just because I have mood swings doesn’t mean I can’t still live a fulfilling life,” I say.
Mom’s voice cracks. “A year ago, you told me you wanted to die. So forgive me if I’m less worried about you feeling fulfilled than you being around to live a life at all.”
Everything inside me constricts, and the pieces of my heart I thought had healed a long time ago begin to tremble.