Chapter 8

"Alright, see you tomorrow!" yelled Carter's mother as she waved to the other parents who drove away in their cars.

"Mum, what are you doing here? I thought you were on a date?" Carter asked, climbing into the front seat.

"Don't forget I also told you that I would be coming for the PTA meeting."

"Yeah, but I didn't think you would be serious about it."

He watched his mother renew her lipstick before driving off.

"How was school?" she asked as they drove through the busy highway.

"Where are we going? This isn't…"

"…the road to our house, I get it," she sighed, reclining into her seat for more comfort as she floored the car. "Let's get out of that place for a while. Take some time off for ourselves."

He looked at the woman by his left in renewed light. She was glowing more than usual. She was different. He buckled his seat belt, laying back into the seat for more comfort.

"How was school?" she asked, overtaking a truck with ease.

"It was okay," he replied without taking his eyes off the window. "I got an A on the group test again."

"That is wonderful honey!" exclaimed the woman. "I am so proud of you."

"Yeah," he mumbled.

"You don't seem happy. Is anything the matter?"

Yes, was what he wanted to say, yet he couldn't say that. He had to put his mothers happiness before his own. She had sacrificed a lot, a fully functional family was not going to be possible if he still held onto the idea that his father was needed.

"I-I have this thing to do with some of my friends," he steered away from his thoughts knowing that it would get his mother into a fit. A fit he was not ready to deal with.

"Yeah? What thing?"

"Me and Ashley were invited to go on a camping trip with Jake and some friends…"

"You mean the Jake, who is big boned?"

He stifled a laugh, "Yeah, that one."

"Oh come on. You don't need to laugh. He's big."

"Yeah. So can I go for it?"

"Sure. Where are you guys camping?"

"I don't know yet, but it's a Native American mountain somewhere in the south. It's not far off."

"I hope it's safe."

"I haven't checked up on that."

"You're smarter than this Carter," she said, driving into a parking lot as they arrived at their destination. "You should have done some research before agreeing to it. Who knows, some monster might be lurking in the woods waiting for you kids to show up so it can rip you guys in half."

"Hardy har har," he scoffed at her poorly delivered jokes before opening the door of the car.

"Make sure to close the window," Mrs Daniel reminded the boy, shutting the driver's side of the door with enough force to shatter the window.

"Sheesh," he hissed, doing the same thing to the door as he followed her into a bowling alley. "Why are we here?"

"To relax."

She gave him a side smile grabbing his hand while jogging into the building.

The brightly colored lights caught his attention as he looked around to see many of the children having fun with the bowling balls.

"Sit over here," the woman said, leading him to a chair while she headed to the counter to pay for their drinks.

Carter was a loner. He enjoyed his own company. Of course if he wasn't alone he enjoyed Ashley's company. She was one who understood his needs and respected them.

"Alright," his mother sighed, joining him at the table with two cups of orange juices in her hand. "The tickets have all been bought and all they had were these consolation prices."

She was referring to the drinks which she sipped down without stopping. When she was done, she gave a burp.

"Ew mum," he grimaced.

"What? It's a natural thing humans should do without getting ashamed of. It's just like farts or the erection you had this morning."

"Mum!" he whispered in a shouty tone, looking around to see if anyone had heard what she had said.

"You see? My point exactly."

"Jesus mum. I can't deal with this right now."

Without waiting to hear what she had to say, he got out his phone and started to scroll through his social media accounts to see if he could discover something interesting to watch.

"Teenagers and social media," she went on, ignoring the fact that she had just embarrassed her son in public. "What are you watching?"

"It doesn't matter," he replied, not looking up from his device.

"Come on. Let me in on it."

"So that you can scream about how your generation went years without technology and walked barefoot in the deserts for centuries?"

"Okay, cool your pants kid. We didn't all live like cave people in the past. And secondly, we did have technology, just not like the ones you kids have today. It was not advanced. But it was technology nonetheless."

"Can I go on the camping trip?"

"Yeah, yeah, sure."

"Thanks mum."

"When are you going?"

"On Friday."

"That's when Mikey should be back."

"I thought he would be showing up on a Sunday."

"Oh," she sighed. Suddenly he could see the age catching up with her. The bags under her eyes had started to return as he saw that she was getting tired.

"How did your date go?" he asked, dropping his phone face down on the table.

She looked away watching the children bowl with their parents, "I don't know. We've been seeing each other at the office but going out on our first official date did not go as planned."

Uh oh, he thought. What had gone wrong?

"While we talked, I noticed that he was still hung up on his dead wife and I was still hung up on your father," she sighed. "It was like a competition where he would say the wonderful things his wife had done for him and I would do the same so I would not feel left out. To be fair, the date had gone horribly wrong."

He had never been on a date but he understood what his mother was talking about.

"So… you guys should go on another date," he sipped his drink.

"You think so?"

"Yeah mum. All you need to do is talk about what you would like to do, where you would like to live and stuff like that. If it makes you feel better, first be friends with him before you start trying to be his girlfriend. That way, you guys would have a ton of things to engage in and hobbies which overlap."

He felt like a guru talking about relationships with his mother.

"Wow, you are so smart," the woman marveled at her son. "Sometimes, I can't believe I gave birth to you."

"Okay mum, you need to stop right there," he chuckled. "Now it's becoming creepy."

"I'm sorry about that," she apologized before looking back at the families around the arena. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

He choked on his drink before hitting his chest to get himself back.

"Should I get you water?!" Mary asked in concern watching him choke.

"I'm fine mum," he coughed. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Choking twice in one day. Are you allergic to surprising questions?"

"Come on mum," he laughed, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I am not allergic to anything. The question caught me off guard that was all."

She gave him a few minutes to gather his thoughts before proceeding further.

"You still haven't answered my question," she pushed further. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

"I don't mum."

"Why not?"

"Because…" he was not ready to fully commit to anyone other than himself.

He found the art of being in a relationship to be a heavy one. Only the brave at heart got into one without knowing if they were going to come out alive or not.

He watched couples around the arena with interest but had no idea why they would want to stay attached to someone else that wasn't their flesh and blood.

The thought of getting married had never occurred to him before. These were things which he never thought of. Things like death, relationships, marriage and having children had never crossed his teenage mind before.

"I don't want to have any yet," he finally answered. "I don't think I'm ready to commit to something that would cause me pain in the long run."

His words took his mother by surprise as she baffled at his words.

"No offense mum but dad was not the best choice."

"I know. You don't need to rub it in my face. But at the expense of my eleven years with him I got two beautiful boys and I don't regret anything."

"Thirteen years?" He raised a brow.

"Peach, we got divorced the year I left him. I spent thirteen years with him but after that, I have been on my own. All I'm trying to say is that I don't regret having you both. Not everything can be calculated by physics and math. Something can't be calculated at all."

He thought deeply on what she had just said. Maybe he was wrong after all to think that relationships were a waste of time.

"Do you like Ashley?"

"Oh come on mum," he chuckled at her silly ideas. "She's my best friend. Of course I like her but not in that way."

She gave him a deep stare which got him uncomfortable for a few minutes.

"Are you hungry?" she asked, changing the subject.

"Yeah. But I'm done with junk food. Let's have something cooked at home."

"How about the new recipe I learnt from…"

"No mum," he cut her off, not wanting to hear about her new discoveries. "Let's cook something that doesn't require the internet."

She laughed at his words, "You want to go home?"

"Let's go home," he noted, dropping his phone into his front pocket.

"You haven't even finished your drink yet," she lamented.

"I'll do that in the car. Now come on lady. We've got dinner to make."

Grabbing his drink and his mother's hand, he started towards the exit for the car.