Chapter 8: A mothers love
Late at night, Gumball woke up after falling asleep, shortly after getting home. He had put up with too much that day to put up with anything more, and just the thought of knowing he had to confront his mother and ex-girlfriend to deal with two of his last three personas were worrying him to his core. Gumball just stood up and exited his room, his ears drooping low from being tired and depressed. The house seemed cleaner than usual. He passed by his sister's room and stopped right outside of it, seeing Anais just playing with her Daisy the Donkey Doll that was nothing unusual. He entered the room, closing the door behind him.
"Hey, Anais," Gumball greeted her getting her attention. "Oh, hey Gumball, need something?" she asked. Gumball nodded, sitting down on her toy chest. "Yeah. Got any idea on when I should talk to mom? About… you know… my feelings?" he asked his younger sibling on the best time to confront their mother. He kept choking up randomly on sentences, out of fear and worry of just thinking about talking to his mother. She sometimes had an anger problem herself. "Okay, listen. Dad's taking me to go grocery shopping, and I know Darwin's studying with Carrie for a science test. Tonight is the best time for you to talk to her," Anais explained to him. She was quick when it came to ideas, and that certainly made Gumball scared to mess with her.
Gumball just nodded. He had to figure out how to word his speech and say what he wanted to tell his mother, believing this could be this one big chance to do so. "Anais, come on! The store is going to close soon!" Richard called from downstairs. "Right then. Good luck, Gumball," Anais wished him luck before leaving the room, hoping he wouldn't get to cowardly or fearful of their mother and fail to do it.
One hour later, Gumball walked downstairs. The house was nearly devoid of people, besides Gumball himself and his mother. Gumball found his mother sitting at the kitchen table, putting a puzzle together out of boredom. "Um, mom?" Gumball began approaching Nicole, looking depressed and carrying the same tone that stayed quiet and monotonous.
"Hey, Gumball. What's the matter?" Nicole questioned while seeing him with that frown she had seen him with many times now. "I… I've been wondering… why everything I do makes you mad?" he forced himself to say it like his voice would refuse to enunciate the words. "Wait, what? Honey, what would make you think that?" Nicole responded, her attention grabbed, wondering what even gave her elder son that thought process. "I mean… you always get mad when me and Darwin do something or mess up…" he mumbled and explained, refusing to make eye contact with his mother. Nicole thought for a second and sighed while thinking this over.
"I love you and Darwin very much. It's just… well… whenever something happens, I get mad because you could have got hurt, or worse and then I start to get mad at myself because I know I could have stopped it," Nicole sighed, knowing that it probably sounded stupid in a sense that her worry always got more overwhelmed by her rage. "I know it seems like I don't at times, but I love you with all my heart, no matter how angry I get," she said. Fortunately, like the brink of dawn, Gumball's dark blue eyes were brightening up. He smiled, hugging his mother after. Nicole rubbed her beloved son's head, glad to have gotten his smile back on his face again.
Gumball broke the hug. He was about to walk back to bed, but his mother stopped him when she remembered something. "Oh, and Penny called for you earlier. I think she wanted to talk with you," Nicole explained. Gumball's lower in worry at the reminder of just confronting Penny. He just went back to his room to play some games.
Gumball stepped into his room, where Darwin's homework lay scattered in the open, waiting to be worked on. Gumball's eyes turned magenta again as he went over and began working on it. He was done with the homework within a quick half hour. After he finished Darwin's and his homework, he was bored and his magenta eyes refused to leave. He got up, heading to Anais' room. He could see her homework lying on her desk as well, nearly finished. He just began working on it out of boredom like his mind refused to rest and forced him to learn to write and work, like he will become jaded without one second of an activity regarding a form of knowledge.
"Gumball, what are you doing?" Anais asked, having returned from the store with Richard just a minute ago. She saw her big brother working on her homework like tampering on a safe. "You didn't have to do my homework," she insisted, thinking he had been doing it as a thank you for all the help she had done. She saw his magenta eyes and had an idea. "What do you think when you're in this… smart personality?" Anais didn't know what other word she could use to classify his personality. Gumball looked at her. "I just keep hearing everyone laughing, and calling me stupid, because you're smarter," Gumball answered with his head hurting. Anais soon realized how he was feeling because of her, one of the people that were supposed to be trying to help him the most.
"You're not stupid. Just not as smart as everyone else," Anais started, catching his attention and bringing his gaze to her. She got a tad bit nervous from seeing a dash Gumball's eye color fade. "I-If you ever need help with any school work, just come to me. Trust me, you are smart in other ways," she reassured him. Gumball's magenta eye color vanished. He sighed, nodding in acknowledgement and holding his head in pain. "Ow…" he muttered. "Did you talk to mom?" she questioned while helping him up from the chair, wanting him to get better as fast as he could. "Yeah, I did… now I only have Penny left to talk to," Gumball answered, but he was not looking forward to it at all, just hoping that he would be able to get rid of his last personality tomorrow. Anais just helped him to bed to let him get some rest before the next morning.
End of Chapter 8