Phyllis *the distractible’s Reviews > Hushed > Status Update

“Stop thinking you’re alone in any of this.”
“You know, I won’t always be like this,” Archer murmured. “I’ll get out of here, and things will be how they should be. Better than before.”
“I know it. And I’ll be here, waiting for you.”

“Wait for me a little longer,” Archer had told him more than once.
Like Evan was going anywhere after all they’d been through.

“What do you want more than anything, Archer?”
[…]
Finally: “I’d like to live.”
Marissa smiled.
“Good. You haven’t done that in awhile.”

She cried.
But he didn’t think it was for him.
You’ll be alone now. How does it make you feel?

“Even with the adrenaline racing through his veins, her words made him so tired. Nothing he said would make this better. “I was miserable, Vivian. I had to do what I had to do.”
“And what is that?”
Archer met her eyes, unflinching, unwavering. “I had to let you go.”

“I would’ve stayed by your side for the rest of my life…if you had ever given me the time of day. But it was never me. I was never enough. All the boyfriends you went through, even the one that ditched you at prom—who was there, Viv? Who has always been there waiting for you?”

They didn’t make him feel guilty. He felt… What did he feel?
Nothing. Blissfully. Nothing.

“How’re you feeling? About…all of this.”
What did that even mean? He shook his head. “I’m not worried about me.”
“I am. You can tell me. I know this is hard. For both of us,…”

“Because I know you only hate me because I did what you wanted to do and were too scared to.” He hunched his shoulders. “And because you’re my mother, and I may not like you most of the time… But I love you.”

As though she didn’t already know. Denial was a powerful thing, and he was all too aware how different it was to think something and actually hear it.