They Let Me Bleed Out for My Sister's Show novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Warm Cup

My mother came to Northmere on Wednesday, alone, in her soft gray cardigan, with a thermos in her hand.

She was waiting on the bench outside the research building when I came out of class.

Her eyes were red, and her knot of brown hair had come loose on one side.

She clearly had not slept in days, and I knew that look better than I wanted to.

I stopped ten feet away.

"Ivy," she said, and her voice broke. "Please. Five minutes."

Rafe was behind me on the steps.

I held up one hand without turning, and he stayed where he was.

"Five," I said.

She patted the bench beside her.

I did not sit.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I want you to know that first. I've been a terrible mother, and I've let your father run everything, and I never once asked what it cost you."

The tears ran down both cheeks.

She did not wipe them.

"I brought you something," she said, and unscrewed the thermos.

Steam rose out of it, with the smell of honey and chamomile.

It was the smell of every sick day I had ever had.

When I was seven and had the flu, she had sat on the end of my bed with a cup exactly like this.

When I was fourteen and cried in the pantry, she had found me and made me a cup, and said nothing, and I had loved her for it.

My throat closed.

She poured a cup and held it out with both hands.

"It's just tea, honey," she said. "You look so thin."

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