Page 63 of Adam
And then, she runs.
“You’re just like him.”
I never thought I’d hear those words again. Not aftershedied—after she was killed. No one has ever dared to draw that comparison since. And truth be told, from the very moment her breath left this world, I felt something forbidden. Relief. Freedom. A poisonous kind of ecstasy that no child should ever know. But I did. At seven years old, I tasted that blasphemy, and it’s been rotting inside me ever since.
Twenty-three years of carrying this venom, this bitter grudge like a second heartbeat. They all say I should honor her. But gratitude is a word that curdles on my tongue.
The only thing I’ll ever thank her for is the defilement she planted in me—the darkness she poured straight into my boyishveins. The corruption she drove like a spike into my skull, until all I could become was the bastard standing here now.
My mother … oh, my sick, fucked-up mother.
She wasn’t like a normal mom should be. Whatever normal even means—she missed that memo completely.
Mother was sick. Loose. An animal. Something feral they tried to pass off as domesticated. Tied up just enough to function, forcing it to sit at the table, smile, play house, so she wouldn’t bite, scream, or lose her shit in front of the kids.
And sometimes she managed. Sometimes she didn’t.
I grew up thinking that was motherhood—chaos on a leash, love that could snap without warning.
I guess crazy runs in the family.
Everything is very clear in my head, but nothing is as clear as that night. It was the night that I realized I was scared of her. Terrified, to be exact.
She was crying. She was always crying when she was alone, or when she wasn’t withhim.
He was her escape. The only one she truly loved.
I crawled onto her bed and pressed myself against her arm, desperate for a way to ease her pain. But I was useless. I didn’t know how to soothe her, the way she used to cradle him when Father’s cruelty and Atticus’s—Father’s bastard son—rage left him trembling.
Her sobs tore through the room like broken glass, each one slicing into me. My mother—this figure who should have been unshakable—reduced to a wreck, drowning in her own helplessness. She wept because she couldn’t protect her first-born son from Atticus’s hands.
“I will always be here for you, Mommy,” I’d said, my hand reaching for hers. “I can be the one who loves you. I can make you happy. I can be your hero.”
For a heartbeat, I waited for her arms. Her approval, or even her smile.
Instead, without looking at me, she peeled my fingers off her, her touch vacant. “Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “I don’t want you. I wanthimback, safe and sound.”
My throat tightened. “But?—”
She finally looked at me, and the disgust on her face was colder than any slap I wished she’d given me that night.
“You’re just like him.Same eyes. Same violence waiting under your skin. I can already see it. Every time I look at you, I see him—the man who ruined me.”
Her voice dropped, low and venomous. “You should never have been born. All you do is remind me of what I hate most.”
Her face was pale, shadows under her eyes, lips trembling from the effect of the pills on her.
She stood, leaving me looking at her with wide eyes. “Now get out of my room.”
My chest squeezed. “Mom, I?—”
Her head snapped toward me.
“Don’t call me that.” Her voice cracked. “You’re not the one I want. I want him back. My real son. Not this … mistake I’m forced to look at every day.”
I blinked, not understanding. “But I do love you?—”
She recoiled as if I’d struck her. Her hand lifted, trembling, pointing toward the door.
