Fix by J. Mann (highly illogical behavior .TXT) 📕

like this makes it better, like she’s conceding. And then she turns and heads off into the kitchen.

Her back. Always her back. Walking away, hunched over a desk, a book, her computer. Intent on everything but me.

“What about school?” I shout after her, and instantly regret it. The thought of school sends a shot of fear through me.

“You have almost a week before you go back. And paratransit can get you there. It’s probably a lot more comfortable than any car would be for you right now anyway,” she says, walking into the kitchen.

School. In less than a week. But that’s not tomorrow, or the next day. Or the day after that.

“And Eve,” she shouts, interrupting my attempt to morph a week into forever. “Mary Fay is great with sick people because of her mom’s multiple sclerosis, and she does a lot of her work from home, so you won’t be alone like you are now.”

“I’m not sick and I like being alone,” I holler, my loud voice sending pain up my spine and through my mangled rib cage.

She ignores me.

“MOM!”

Still no answer.

I pick up my Roxy, yet instead of opening it, I hold the bottle against my chest and turn toward the big picture window. The sky is a bright gray. It looks like it might snow. Or maybe it’s just evening.

Dropping to my knees, I roll back onto the couch with the Roxy in my hands and close my eyes. Shutting out everything.

Did I want this? For her to go?

I don’t. I know I don’t.

Cold. Lakes. Snow.

My thumb rubs along the ridged edge of the plastic bottle top.

Don’t open it.

I hear my mother walk back into the room. I hear her sip her wine. It must be evening.

“Mary Fay will have Dr. Sowah’s number,” she says. And then I guess since she sees me lying there holding my Roxy like a warm little kitten, she adds, “As well as a list of your prescriptions. I just spoke with her and she said it’s no problem at all for her to stay here. She’ll drive over after dinner on Sunday.”

I keep my eyes closed. “Of course Mary Fay said she’d come. She is a caring, loving human.”

My mother quickly gets my meaning.

“Eve, stop acting like I’m abandoning you. I’ve been here every day for six weeks. I’ll be here for two more days, and then back before you know it. For god’s sake, this is important to me.”

I squeeze my eyes shut even tighter. I’m not important to her. I want to fucking be important to her.

“Eve.”

“I don’t need Mary Fay. I’m sixteen, not six.”

“As you have just pointed out, you’ve undergone major surgery. I’m not leaving you alone.”

“You leave me alone every single day!”

She winces. “That’s different. I’m just a few miles away. And every time you call, I pick up immediately.”

I’ve only called twice, which she knows.

“I’d be fine by myself.”

“Blood clots, infection, confusion, nausea, atrophy, atelectasis,” she says. “Should I keep going?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” she says.

“Well, I don’t know what atelectasis is,” I grumble, turning to face the back of the couch.

“It’s a collapsed lung. And it can happen after serious surgeries. All those things can happen after serious surgeries. That is why I’m not leaving you alone.”

I take a breath.

And then another.

My lungs feel fine? I think? I didn’t even know they could collapse.

My mother reads the silence. “Your lungs aren’t going to collapse,” she says.

I turn my head to face her. “Then why can’t I just stay here alone?”

I don’t want to stay alone. But I don’t know what to say that will keep her here.

She flaps her hands at her sides in frustration and turns around and walks out of the living room. So I guess it wasn’t that.

“Did you ever think,” she says, her voice muffled by the fact that she is walking away from me, again, “that maybe I want to go and do this very important thing in my life without having to worry about you?”

Her words suck the air right out of my perfectly fine lungs, and before I can stop myself, I roar, “I didn’t know that you ever worried about me.”

My head spins with the emotion of letting those words out into the world.

She stops. She’s angry. I can feel it. How dare she be angry. But she doesn’t turn around.

Come back. Don’t go.

She goes. Leaving me alone.

Except for my Roxy.

Mirrors and Miracles

IT’S BEEN SIXTEEN HOURS WITHOUT ROXY.

That’s the new deal. No Roxy and my mother stays safe. The telescope can go fuck himself.

It’s also been sixteen hours without sleep. I’m exhausted and I ache from my split ends down to my scuzzy toenails. The only way I can deal with the pain is to lie very still and moan. I’m back in my bedroom with my telescope. I wish he wasn’t in here, but I can’t ask her to take him out because I love that she moved him without my asking.

I turn my head and look at him. Dust lies on the top of the black cylinder like the first few flakes of snow on the top of a mailbox. His aperture faces the floor. Maybe he’s not here anymore.

He is not a he; it is a telescope. A thing. A made-up thing.

He was never here.

I take another big breath to test my lungs. They’re working, but greedy-ish, like they need extra air. I pick up my Roxy and shake it. It sounds like a festive little maraca.

I do not need one. My spine throbs, my staples itch, and the tips of my missing ribs vibrate in fear at even my mind approaching them.

But.

I do not need one.

I shake my Roxy again. I remove the top and look at them. My mother will be gone for two weeks. That’s a long conference.

Two weeks.

I twist the top back on with a heavy sigh, put the bottle onto my bedside table, and then glance over at him.

I can