Chapter 30 30
Roman's POV
We took the stairs instead of the elevator. Miles said it was a tactical decision.
"We're buying ourselves time," he announced, starting up the first flight with his clinking bag of bottles. "Every step is another second of freedom."
He thought that was funny, but I didn't have it in me to laugh. My mind was on the storm I knew my mother would stir up because of my sneaking out.
My knee managed the stairs better than I expected, which was the one good thing I could say about the morning so far. I gripped the railing and took it one step at a time while Miles walked beside me at my pace, his bag of stolen bottles clinking softly with every step.
We reached my floor and slowly stepped into the apartment. There was a small anteroom just before my living room, and Miles and I waited there. My mother's voice came through from the living room first, sounding crisp and annoyed.
"I simply do not understand what is so difficult about a straightforward instruction," she was saying to Nurse Sarah. "He was told to stay in the apartment and rest until he gets better. He has a fractured kneecap, Sarah. A fractured kneecap, and yet you let him walk out of here at nine o'clock at night without so much as a phone call to me until three hours later?"
"I am so sorry, Mrs Foster." Sarah's voice was smaller and completely unrecognizable from the woman who had confiscated my Hennessy yesterday. "I should have been more vigilant, Ma'am. I am sorry and I take full responsibility. It won't happen again, I assure you."
"It most certainly will not," my mother replied. "Because if it does, I will find someone who takes this job as seriously as it deserves to be taken. Roman's recovery is not a casual matter. It affects his future, his hockey career and everything else. And the people I employ to support that recovery need to understand the gravity of their role."
"Absolutely, Mrs Foster. I understand what you are saying. You are completely right. I should have locked the fire escape as well, I didn't even think that he would esc—"
"No, you didn't think. That much is clear."
There was a pause, probably Nurse Sarah bristling from the weight of my mother's insult. "Can I get you more tea, Mrs Foster? You're almost done with this one."
"Yes, go ahead."
Miles and I looked at each other. He pressed his lips together and said nothing.
We heard Sarah's footsteps moving towards where we stood. Then she turned the corner and walked straight into us. She let out a sharp gasp, stumbling backward, her hand flying to her chest.
"Master Roman!" she exclaimed, then turned back toward the living room. "Mrs Foster, Master Roman and his friend are back!"
There was a brief silence from the living room. Then, "Send them in."
I walked in first, and Miles followed close behind.
My mother was sitting in the armchair by the window. Her suede coat was still on, her handbag resting on her knee, and her almost empty tea cup on the side table. She looked at me the way she always looked at me—it was as though she was always assessing me and finding me below standard.
I had spent twenty years on the receiving end of that look, and I still hadn't gotten used to it. Sometimes I wondered, in the darkest corners of my own mind, whether she was actually my biological mother or whether there had been some kind of cosmic mix-up at the hospital.
"Sit down," she ordered.
"I'll stand," I replied.
"I see you brought your fellow rule-breaker along." Her eyes moved to Miles briefly, then back to me. "You left this apartment last night without telling anyone where you were going. You have a fractured kneecap that is still in the process of healing. You were out until God knows what hour, doing God knows what, with no regard whatsoever for your health or for the people who are trying to help you recover. Can you see how careless you are being, or should I go on?"
I said nothing.
"You are behaving like a child, Roman. An irresponsible, ungrateful child who cannot follow the simplest of instructions."
"I went to a party," I grumbled. "I didn't rob a bank or steal a car."
"Don't you dare be flippant with me!"
"Then don't talk to me like I'm twelve years old." I kept my voice level, but I could feel it fraying at the edges. "I am a twenty year old student who went out for one evening. My knee is fine, as you can see. I am walking perfectly well without my crutches."
"Your knee," she argued, "is not fine. That is the entire point. If your knee were fine, you wouldn't need Sarah here, you wouldn't need any of this, and we wouldn't be having this conversation."
"Way to hit the nail on the head, Mom." I shot back. "I don't need Sarah here, but you still went out of your way to force her onto my space. We wouldn't be having this conversation if you hadn't shown up at my apartment unannounced at whatever time in the morning. See, this is exactly why I didn't move into the big house, Mom. This. You following me around and monitoring my every move."
"I am trying to take care of you."
"No! You're trying to control me, like you try to control everyone in your orbit!" I was suddenly yelling. "You did it to Aaron, now you're doing it to me. But I don't want it. I won't let it!"
I could have sworn that tje temperature in the room dropped, from the icy look on my mother's face. Her lips had thinned into a severe line, and she was slowly getting to her feet.
"You will not," my mother said quietly, "speak Aaron's name in that context."
"Why not?" I asked. "Because you know it's true? Do you think you were the only one who loved him? Or do you think his death only happened to you?"
I looked at her, and I felt everything I usually kept pressed down, rising up. "He was my brother, and he was my best friend. I grieved him just as hard as you did, and I am still grieving him, but you don't see that because you're too busy reminding me that I'm not him. Nobody will ever be as perfect as dear Aaron was, would they?"
My mother said nothing. Her face was very stony.
"Show yourself out when you're done," I told her. "I'm going to my room."
I turned and walked out of the living room, and in the narrow hallway I caught Sarah with my shoulder as she stepped out of the kitchen with a fresh cup of tea. The cup rattled on the saucer and she let out a gasp.
"Mr Foster, please, stomping around like that on a healing knee is exactly the kind of thing that can set your recovery back by—"
I ignored her and kept walking.
Miles followed me, pulling my bedroom door shut behind us. He sat down on the edge of my bed, staring at me with concern on his eyes.
"So," he commented. "That went well."
I dropped into the chair by my desk and said nothing.
"Roman, come on." He continued. "That was a lot between you and your mom. Don't you maybe, wanna talk about it?"
"No, Miles. Drop it."
"Alright. On an unrelated note," Miles continued, reaching into his bag and producing the bottles of drinks he'd swiped from the party, "are we still going on the ice tomorrow to test that knee? Because we have just five days, and I think we should use them."
"Yeah," I muttered. "We're going."