A/N:
friendly reminder: if you're here for laughs, they exist, but they might be sitting next to a few ghosts. Chapter Three isn't loud. It's quiet. The kind of quiet that presses on your ribs like memory foam and regret.
Hold tight. Breathe when you need to. And don't feel weird if a line hits too close—some of us are built from crumbs and coping mechanisms.
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The train screeched to a stop like it had just realized it forgot its wallet. That high-pitched metal-on-metal scream rattled my eardrums and probably shaved three years off my lifespan, but hey, welcome to Uptown.
Mom stood up first. No hesitation. She was already halfway down the aisle by the time I blinked. Her eyes locked on mine like a heat-seeking missile. "Wait by the park," she said, already walking. "I'll be back in ten."
Which was cute, because grocery store math is never ten minutes. It's always ten minutes plus a twenty-minute war with the tomato aisle and a bonus ten of bumping into that one neighbor who knows everybody's business.
But I didn't argue. Because I knew what this was really about.
She didn't want the neighborhood to know I was back. Not yet. Not like this.
And yeah, I could lie to myself and pretend she just didn't want me knocking over a display of eggs again (one time!), but the truth was as clear as the panic-gloss in her eyes when we stepped off the train.
I was her son. But I was also her shame souvenir.
So, I stayed put. Sat on the rusty bench by the duck pond slash pigeon war zone and tried not to look suspicious, which is impossible when you're a teenage boy wearing a hoodie and backpack and looking like you're either waiting for your mom or casing the area.
Pigeons waddled around like they owned the place, pecking at old popcorn and broken dreams. One of them had a weird limp but was still bullying the others for scraps, and honestly? Mood.
I leaned back on the bench, watching their stupid little flappy arguments, and for half a second, I imagined being one of them. No school. No lectures. Just endless snacks from strangers and the occasional statue to poop on. Bliss.
My stomach grumbled. Loudly. Rude. I'd finished my sad sandwich earlier, but it had only made me more aware of how hollow everything felt inside me. Physically, emotionally, spiritually… hunger in stereo.
The park smelled like wet leaves, rusted metal, and whatever cologne the old guy two benches over was wearing—something halfway between gasoline and grief. A kid was screaming at a squirrel. Someone's dog peed on a tree. Real-life stuff.
Then—
"Tommy, let's go!" Mom's voice snapped me out of my pigeon daydream.
I blinked, looked up, and saw her hurrying toward me with a plastic bag. Just one. Small. Not our usual grocery haul, not even a "we'll stock up later" situation. More like… "this is all we can manage right now without setting off alarms."
We used to need two bags, minimum. Sometimes three. Bread, cereal, snacks I'd pretend I hated but secretly devoured at 2 a.m. But now?
Just one.
And her hands were shaking. Barely. Like hummingbird wings. Most people wouldn't notice. But I did. Because I watch her the way you watch someone carry glass—terrified of when they'll drop.
I stood up, dusted imaginary crumbs off my jeans (because dignity, I guess?), and walked over. I didn't ask questions. Didn't point out the bag was lighter than usual. Just offered to take it from her, gently, like maybe if I carried it, she could breathe again.
She gave me a tired smile. It was small. Wobbly. But it was real.
We didn't say anything.
We just walked.
And the whole time, I kept thinking: If pigeons get fed for doing nothing, why do I feel like I have to earn every bite of forgiveness?
We'd just turned the corner onto Maple—or what used to be Maple, before it got taken over by potholes and that one guy who sells bootleg DVDs from a shopping cart—when something clicked.
No. Wait. Didn't click.
"Mom…" I slowed down mid-step. "Where's your car?"
I wasn't trying to sound suspicious, but I definitely came off like a mini detective catching a suspect in a lie. Because suddenly, everything just felt… off. We always took the train when her car had issues—flat tire, weird clanking sound, battery death (RIP)—and she always complained about it. Loudly. Like a sport.
But today? Nada. No groaning. No "Ugh, the universe hates me." Just vibes.
She stopped walking.
Not like Oops, I forgot something stopped. No—this was a full-body pause. A hang-on-while-I-choose-my-words-like-they're-weaponized kind of stop. And for a second, just a second, I swear I heard her inhale like she was bracing for impact.
She turned to face me with the fakest smile this side of the apocalypse.
"Tommy boy," she said.
And that's when my stomach did the flop.
Tommy. Boy.
She only called me that when things were about to get depressing. Like, "your goldfish didn't actually go to live on a farm" depressing. Last time she said it, I ended up burying my dog in the backyard with a shovel from Dollar Tree and half a roll of paper towels.
"Oh no," I said automatically.
She blinked. "What?"
"I know that voice," I pointed at her like she'd been caught red-handed stealing cookies and emotional security. "That Tommy Boy voice. That's your bad news coming voice."
She hesitated. Then, with this weird shrug like she wanted to be casual but also wanted to melt into the pavement, she said, "I had to sell the car."
Boom. There it was. Bad news. Straight to the chest.
"I mean, it wasn't working properly anymore," she added quickly, like she could glue the broken pieces of truth together with words. "And we weren't using it much, what with the train and your school—well, not your school now but… anyway, it was time."
My brain just kind of... fuzzed. Like when a computer freezes and the fan goes full jet-engine mode. I didn't even know what to say. I just stood there on the cracked sidewalk, next to a trash can that smelled like pickles and broken dreams, staring at my mom like she'd turned into an alien.
"You sold it," I repeated, more to the pigeons than to her.
"It was either that or let it rot in the driveway," she said, and even though she was still smiling, her voice was doing that tight thing. The kind where everything's fine but it's absolutely not fine.
I wanted to say something clever. Or reassuring. Or anything other than what I actually said, which was:
"…You loved that car."
And she had. It was this crusty old Toyota that smelled like hand sanitizer and lavender chewing gum. She talked to it like it was a person. She'd named it Harold, for crying out loud.
She nodded. "Yeah. I did."
And just like that, I felt like the worst kid on the planet. Because while she was out here sacrificing her four-wheeled best friend to keep us going, I was out here getting expelled for putting a nail in Mr. Brandwaters' chair like I was starring in a bad sitcom.
I looked away. At the rusted street sign. At a cat walking along a fence like it had its life together. At anything but her face.
She reached over and gave my shoulder a quick squeeze. No lecture. No guilt-tripping. Just one of those "I know you're spiraling, but I'm still here" squeezes.
"It's okay, Tommy," she said, already walking again like we weren't both mentally unraveling in real time. "We're okay."
I wanted to believe that.
But as I caught up beside her, dragging the grocery bag and guilt like a shadow, I kept thinking: If we're okay… why does it feel like everything's quietly falling apart and no one's screaming about it but me?
"You know," Mom said, walking beside me like she wasn't low-key carrying the weight of the universe in her Target sneakers, "you don't have to worry about everything. If you keep frowning like that, your hair's gonna fall out. And me and your dad—we've got it under control."
Lies.
Sweet, well-meaning, protect-your-kid-at-all-costs lies.
I didn't say anything at first. Just kept walking next to her down the sidewalk that smelled faintly like overripe bananas and city heat—like the summer forgot to shower.
She was doing that thing again. The "everything's fine" voice. The one that sounds like it's been sanded smooth to keep from cracking. The same tone she used when our neighbor's electricity got cut off and she handed over a casserole with an extra fifty folded under the foil like it was seasoning.
I glanced at the bags in her hands. Smaller than usual. Like, insultingly smaller. Like, "don't even ask if there's cereal in here" smaller.
We used to haul enough groceries to stock a bomb shelter. Today? One sad bag with maybe bread, eggs if we were lucky, and that off-brand orange juice that tastes like regret.
She looked thinner, too. Like the stress was physically carving her out. I didn't want to see it, didn't want to know it, but it was right there in her cheekbones and the way her arms didn't fill her sweater like they used to.
I was fourteen—not five. I wasn't stupid. Okay, not completely stupid.
And yet.
I smiled at her like a dumb little kid playing pretend. I puffed up my voice with fake optimism and said, "Don't worry, Mum. We'll just get another one."
I didn't even specify what "one" meant. The car? The life we had two years ago? A break from the universe being a jerk? All of it?
She chuckled. But it was the kind of laugh that ended too fast. Like it tripped over something on the way out.
"Okay," she said, like she was going to let me have that one. "Let's go wait for your dad, shall we?"
We turned down the next street. I nodded like everything was totally chill and not unraveling at the seams. But inside, I was... folding. Quietly. The way people do when they're not allowed to scream in public.
Because no matter how much she smiled or how many "Tommy boys" she threw at me, I could feel it.
The slipping.
The not-saying.
The truth underneath it all, pressed like folded laundry under a bed we didn't want to look under.
We were trying. All four of us. God, we were trying. But something was cracking—and I was just hoping it wasn't us.
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I took the grocery bag from her, even though she didn't ask. It felt weirdly heavy for how light it actually was—probably because it wasn't just bread and canned soup in there. It was everything else. The quiet stuff. The stuff we weren't saying.
Mom led the way down the street like she had a mission, like if she walked fast enough, none of this would feel so close to crumbling. We ended up at this tiny diner tucked at the end of the block. One of those places that smelled like grease and forgotten dreams and had booths that squeaked every time you blinked too hard.
Inside, it was warm in that too-yellow way, like the lights were trying to make you feel safe but just made everything look slightly fake—like a set on a bad sitcom.
She ordered a coffee—black, of course. No sugar. No cream. Just sadness in a mug.
I got an orange juice and two slices of cake. Because, you know. Priorities.
The first bite of chocolate cake tasted like nostalgia, childhood, and a sugar high I couldn't afford emotionally. I hadn't realized how much I missed it. Not just the taste, but the way it made things feel normal for, like, two seconds.
But then came the guilt. Real quick. Like my brain was waiting for the sugar rush to hit so it could uppercut me in the soul.
Because what the hell was I doing eating cake when Mom was down to one grocery bag and selling her car and pretending everything was okay?
I kept my eyes glued to the window like maybe the streetlamp across the road had answers. Spoiler: it didn't. It just flickered like it was as stressed as I was.
Mom didn't say anything either. She just stared into her coffee like she could read her fortune in the steam.
I pulled out the tiny novel I'd stuffed in my hoodie pocket earlier. Some sci-fi thing with a messed-up cover and dog-eared pages. I read the same paragraph three times and still had no clue what it said. My eyes were moving, but my brain was doing that thing where it's screaming under the surface like a kettle about to boil over.
I didn't want to look at her. Not because I was mad—because I was ashamed. I knew, deep down, this whole situation was partially my fault. And I hated that. I hated that I kept messing things up and she kept loving me anyway like some sort of superhero-masochist hybrid.
I read more. Or at least pretended to.
The diner buzzed softly—low chatter, clinking forks, some ancient song playing from the ceiling that probably hadn't been updated since '98. The kind of background noise that should've been comforting, but just made me feel floaty. Like I wasn't really here.
Then, around 8:00 p.m.—ish, maybe a little later—the sound of a familiar engine rumbled into the parking lot.
I didn't even need to look up.
Dad.
His truck pulled in like it had something to prove—loud, proud, and at least two decades out of style. It was a four-seater that always smelled like leather and mint chewing gum, and it had one of those dashboard bobbleheads that nodded yes to everything, even when life was clearly saying no.
And then there he was.
My dad, in full cowboy cosplay.
Striped button-up tucked into faded jeans, giant leather belt buckle like it won an award for existing, and that stupid wide-brimmed hat that made him look like he was on his way to lasso a horse or yell at a tumbleweed. People stared sometimes. He didn't care. He never cared.
When we were younger—me, my sister, the neighbor's weird twins—we used to tease my dad about the whole cowboy aesthetic. You know, boots like he was walking through a tumbleweed field (even though we lived in Queens), that loud belt buckle big enough to serve snacks on, and The Hat. God, that stupid hat.
He called it "style."
We called it a midlife crisis in denim.
But when he walked into the diner that night—boots clunking like judgment day and his jaw clenched so tight I thought it might snap clean off—yeah, no one was about to crack cowboy jokes. Not even a little.
He didn't say hi. Didn't give Mom a nod or even glance at the little half-empty cup of coffee trembling between her hands. His eyes landed on me like I was the reason gravity still existed. Like I'd personally offended every cowboy who ever lived.
"Get your ass up," he said. Just like that. Like it was a line from a Western and I was the villain.
"We're going home."
Oh.
Cool.
No hug? No "Hey son, heard you got kicked out of another school, wanna talk about your undiagnosed issues over pie?" Just straight to the drama.
Mom blinked. "Richard—" she started, gently, like she was trying to wrap his name in bubble wrap.
"Don't." His voice snapped like a whip. He didn't even look at her. That stung more than if he'd yelled. Mom wasn't just hurt—she shrunk, like a balloon with a slow leak. Like this was what she was afraid would happen.
I swallowed whatever was in my throat—probably guilt, maybe cake—and stood up. My legs were jelly. Betrayal jelly. Like, thanks guys, I needed you to function right now.
"Okay," I said, even though nothing was okay and my voice came out a little too soft and a little too fake-deep, like I was trying to convince myself I was braver than I felt.
I looked at Mom and gave her this awkward half-nod, half-sorry-I'm-the-problem smile. She didn't deserve this. She'd already done the fighting. Every day. Quietly. With those shrinking grocery bags and the car-that-wasn't and the "It's okay, Tommy boy" voice that I was really starting to hate because it meant things weren't okay at all.
This was my mess. My expulsion. My screw-up. It was about time I stopped letting her carry all of it.
So I stepped away from the booth. Didn't even grab the rest of the cake.
Big sacrifice, I know.
But as I passed by Dad—who still hadn't said my name—I realized something else: he wasn't mad because of the school. Not just that.
He was disappointed. That quiet, nuclear kind of disappointed that doesn't need volume. Just weight.
We walked out of the diner, the little bell above the door ringing like a bad punchline, and the cool night air hit me like a slap. Or maybe it was relief. Or shame. Probably both. My cheeks were hot either way.
He didn't speak on the way to the truck. Just unlocked it and got in like we were late for something.
I slid into the back seat and the leather squeaked under me like even the truck was judging me now.
I stared out the window, watching the neon sign from the diner flicker on and off behind us like it couldn't make up its mind either.
Dad revved the engine.
I braced myself.
Because I knew the ride home wasn't going to be quiet.
And somehow, that was worse than getting yelled at.