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Holding On and Letting Go

Part II: October

The worst moments were the ones when he just forgot. When he talked with Sharon or laughed at a movie or wondered what it would feel like to kiss the guy who sat next to him in his psych class, the one with the nice arms and the really intense eyes. Then it was like the pain was just taking a rest to gather up its strength. Dr. Joe could talk about how this was a normal part of grieving all he wanted, but that didn't keep it from punching him straight in the throat whenever he remembered.

Rusty shivered, freezing in the night air as he leaned against the balcony railing but too stubborn to go back inside for longer sleeves. He was only out here in the first place because when the sudden urge to go somewhere had seized him it had been a quarter to midnight. He was already in pajamas. Sharon would flip out if he went for a walk this time of night, anyway.

He hunched over, watching the cars down below as they drove by. He couldn't tell which one was Sharon's, but she was supposed to be on her way home by now.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to see her tonight or not. She was keeping her promise not to ask him anything and he sometimes felt better when he was around her, but sometimes he felt worse. It was hard to tell.

Forgetting wasn't a problem that he was having right now.

Which was good, because he was having a hard enough time with all the remembering that he was doing.

"I'm going to make it to the halfway house this time."

She said it clearly expecting him to be pleased. Rusty tried to smile for her. She'd made it this far. Even if she'd only gotten there by being in jail, that was something she could be proud of.

"That's—that's great, Mom." He hoped she wouldn't get lost on the way there again.

His mother's smile became a scowl as she added, "Not that they're giving me much of a choice."

He wasn't holding his breath that she wouldn't, either. Rusty gripped his phone a little harder, his doubt growing with every word she said while he tried not to let it show.

"Structure helps," he reminded her. "That's what you said, right? And they're going to help you find a job, aren't they?"

He was a little unclear on who they were, but she seemed sure. Sharon would probably explain it to him, if he asked. He wasn't sure he wanted to ask her.

"I've been out of work so long I won't know where to start." She made a face. "Probably McDonald's or something. Nothing to be excited about."

It was harder to keep his smile in place. She'd had those sorts of jobs before–fast food, grocery stores, retail. She'd quit Burger King because it was "too embarrassing", and she'd been fired from Safeway after money disappeared from her register too many nights in a row. If he asked her now, he was pretty sure she'd still swear she hadn't stolen it.

He couldn't remember her having a job after that.

"It's just somewhere to start, right?" he said. "Sharon says—"

He froze, fingers tightening around the phone. Across from him, his mother's face hardened. Rusty cringed. He always tried so hard not to upset her, and mentioning Sharon was the fastest way to do that.

"Go on," she said, an edge to her voice. "What does Sharon say?"

"Uh... just that, you know..." Rusty gave his mother a wary look. "I really wanted a job last summer. For... after graduation." He didn't tell her what he'd wanted the money for. She might ask for some, and Dr. Joe had helped him see that Lieutenant Flynn was right. If she was going to make it, she needed to learn to support herself. "But, um, when I got the Badge of Justice job, Sharon said that if I worked hard that would make getting my next job easier."

There had been more to the talk when Sharon had given it to him, but he stopped there.

Grudgingly, his mother inclined her head. "That's something to think about."

Rusty let out his breath. He cut their visits short whenever his mother called Sharon a bitch, but for the most part, he tried not to mention her at all. His mother was still hurt that he'd let Sharon adopt him.

"I..."

He leaned forward again when she hesitated. "What?"

"Never mind," she said, sliding her fingers along the silver length of cord. "You'll laugh."

"I won't," he promised.

"You're probably too young to remember this," she said. "But once, when you were real little, I started taking some GED classes. It was too hard to do with you around, but I'm thinking that maybe now..."

"You're going to try again?" The sudden happiness made him able to ignore how guilty he felt whenever he remembered how hard he had made her life. And he knew he had. Maybe it hadn't been his fault, he'd give Dr. Joe that much, but he knew it hadn't been easy for his mother to be on her own with him and no other family or friends to help her out.

"Don't get so excited. I'm only thinking about it." But she seemed pleased.

"I could help you study," he said. "If you wanted."

"You'd do that?"

"Yeah, Mom, I would." Another thought popped into his head. "I could give you rides to class."

That way, he could help her without actually giving her any money. That would be all right. And that way, he could see her every week, and if something was off he could... he wasn't sure what.

She sounded genuinely touched as she said, "I knew I did something right with you."

"Yeah." He swallowed. He didn't have the heart to tell her it hadn't been her. "I've got to get going, Mom, but I'll come see you again as soon as I can."

"Next weekend, okay?" she said. "I'll have things a little more figured out by then."

"Have a good week." He hesitated, but it seemed all right to tell her. "I love you."

"I love you too."

He hadn't seen her again after that.

Rusty ground his teeth together when the lights across the street all grew blurry. Times like this, he thought he'd be better off forgetting after all.

He was still standing there when Sharon came home. He heard her come in and, with it too late for him to hide in his room before she saw him, stayed where he was, concentrating hard on the closest streetlamp as he blinked the last of the tears out of his eyes.

He felt her eyes on the back of his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her standing in the living room, watching him from the other side of the glass door. She didn't say anything, and she didn't join him. Rusty let out a deep breath when she walked away a moment later.

He wanted to be alone.

But.

Before he could work it out, Sharon came back. He heard the door slide quietly open and then closed again, and then Sharon came to stand beside him, not quite touching him but close enough that the sleeve of her bathrobe brushed up against his arm. He didn't look down, but he guessed she was wearing her Uggs with her pajamas.

Without a word, she carefully draped one of his sweatshirts over the railing.

He felt a strong, sudden urge to yell at her. It came from nowhere but filled him from head to toe, and even as he opened his mouth, he knew it was wrong.

"I—" Rusty caught himself without any real idea of what he'd been about to say. Instead, he looked away and mumbled, "I'm not cold, Sharon."

He thought he heard her sigh. She could probably see the goosebumps on his arms.

Just as quickly, the fleeting satisfaction of pushing her away became regret.

Rusty squeezed his eyes shut, his throat burning painfully when he swallowed. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have snapped at you."

At least he hadn't said anything awful this time, but that didn't make him feel much better. Neither did the realization that Sharon hadn't yet said a word to him.

Wanting to forget one of his mothers and wanting to scream at the other. Maybe his mother had been right about how much he judged her, because he didn't think he was doing so well at being a son right now, either. The burning spread to the inside of his nose.

"It's all right," Sharon said heavily. She sounded so tired. He tried to remember if she'd even come home last night. "I'm not angry."

"It's just that..." He swallowed, trying to disguise a sniffle as a quick inhale as he struggled to explain. "Sometimes, you..."

Sometimes everything she was reminded him of everything his mother wasn't. His mother wouldn't have paid for Sharon's funeral. He knew that.

"I feel like it's not fair to be mad at her now," he said. "When she's not here." It took him a second to realize that made him sound worse, not better. "But it's not fair for me to take it out on you, either."

"I would say very little about this is fair," Sharon said quietly. "I'm not angry, I promise you."

This time, when she pushed the jacket towards him in a less than subtle suggestion, he took it. Suddenly aware of how cold he was, Rusty zipped himself up and buried his hands deep in the pockets. When he looked at Sharon, she'd taken the same stance. Her hands were hidden in her robe.

"She tried to quit," he said. "Before. A couple of times. Do you remember, how I told you about me learning to drive..."

"I do."

"She felt really bad about that," he said. "She said—and I believed her. I was such an idiot."

"You were twelve," Sharon said. She did that a lot. Reminded him that he'd been a kid, even if he hadn't felt like one. "But it's never easy realizing you've been lied to, I know."

Oh.

"Did, uh..." He hoped he wasn't crossing a line. "Did Jack..."

Sharon was quiet for a long time. Long enough that Rusty worried he'd upset her, and he wished he could cram the words back inside where they couldn't hurt anyone.

"Oh yes," she said finally. Sharon rearranged her arms, folding them across her chest. Like him, she was watching him while she pretended to stare at the building across the street. "Many times."

"Did he ever make things sound so good you couldn't see how everything wouldn't work out?" he asked. "And then when they didn't, when you thought about it again it was so obvious that they wouldn't, you couldn't figure out how you'd ever believed him?"

"Many, many times." She sounded sad.

"My mom was making plans," he said. "She was talking about how she was going to get a job and go back to school and all of these things. And... maybe she could've done it. I don't know. She'd never stayed clean that long before. But then I started thinking about all of the other times and how she couldn't do it then, and... I was just worried that she'd start using again."

That was what he'd been worrying about, after she'd already died but before Sharon had told him.

His mother had never been great at sobriety.

She'd promised him before that she would quit. Usually after a bad breakup. She'd talk about how she wanted them to make a fresh start, just her and her little boy. He'd promise to help her... but he'd had to go to school, and it was when he wasn't around that she would break down and he'd come home to the only problem I have is you or don't you sit there and judge me. On really bad days, he had gotten shoved out the door and been told to never come back.

So this time, when she'd made it to three hundred and forty-four days, long enough for him to have his mother back, his real mother, the way she had been before all of that... He'd known it would hurt more to lose her this time. He just hadn't expected it to happen like this.

At least this way, he'd seen her two days before and she'd known who he was. She'd told him that she loved him.

That was the last thing she'd ever said to him.

Maybe someday it would make him feel better.

He could feel his eyes welling up again.

Sharon shifted beside him to tuck her fingers beneath her arms. Rusty blinked the tears away and took a good look at her for the first time since she'd stepped out onto the balcony. That earlier shame returned, a giant ball of guilt slowly coalescing in his stomach. Her eyes were shut all the way now, and there were dark circles beneath them. He was pretty sure she hadn't gotten any sleep since the day before yesterday. Had he even asked if she'd solved her case?

"You... Sharon, you can go," he said.

She didn't need to stand here with him all night.

Her head tilted towards him, like she knew he was watching her. She didn't open her eyes. "In a moment."

"I don't really wanna talk anymore."

The thing about Sharon was that he could say that and she wouldn't think that he was lying or hiding anything.

He felt her hand settle on his shoulder, her touch warm even though the layers he was wearing. It made him feel... better. Somehow.

When he looked over at her, she was watching him. He'd gotten used to what he saw when she did that, but sometimes it was hard to take in just how much she loved him.

Rusty swallowed, lowering his eyes as they began prickling again.

"Did you solve your murder?"

"We did." Sharon let go of his shoulder to rub her forehead. "I'm not sure I want to discuss that right now, either."

That probably meant it had been a kid. Or someone who reminded her of her kids.

"But," she added, "we've made our arrest, and we'll finalize the deal in the morning. It ended as well as it could have."

He didn't know how to answer, but she didn't seem to need one.

This time, her arm slid all the way around his shoulders. It wasn't exactly a hug, but it wasn't exactly not one, either. "You going to stay out here awhile longer?"

He nodded. Not too much longer. "Thank you," he said, finally turning fully to face her. "For... everything."

Sharon lifted a hand, her expression fond as she smoothed down his bangs. "Just don't stay out here all night, all right?"

"I won't," he promised. "I'll come in soon. Good night."

"Good night." At the door, she turned back. "Love you."

"I—" His throat tightened up, so he just nodded and hoped she knew the rest. He thought she did, because she gave him a smile and a little nod before she stepped inside.