//* Sorry for the late update! I find it sad that the story is going by slower than actual time T-T what is this Anyway hope you enjoy it :)

My mother stands in front of the kitchen counter when I come home, and all I do is remember the salt and cringe. Please realize that you did something wrong last time and fix it this time. I can't bear to eat that kind of meal again. But even as I think it, I realize that I'm not automatically shunning her anymore. Although the change is slight, my mind is no longer keeping her in her normal place of that mom that always sat back and did nothing.

I cringe internally. When did this happen? When did she become good, on my side? My side only ever had me and Rin on it together. She's not supposed to be here. She's on his side. We're fighting. She's supposed to be my enemy. She's supposed to lie to me, deceive me, be horrible to me. Why is she being nice? Nice enough to almost make me regret my nastiness to her? It's not supposed to be this way, is it? Are parents supposed to be like this? It's like a fairy tale to me, something far beyond the reach of my fingers, not reality.

But maybe my reality was changing. It staying in that paradise was wishful thinking, but it staying as this hell of fighting solo was also way too much. Even though I want myself to be strong even without Rin, want to be strong enough to endure without constantly relying on her, I can't. Tears slip down my cheeks and I turn away to run straight to my room.

I collapse on my bed, my torso shivering and my legs twitching. Who is that woman, anyway? Who is she? Where did my mother go? Where did she and her TV go? The two used to be inseparable, and now she's willingly spending time away from that thing. My breath speeds up, and I can feel cold air blowing on my sweat-soaked arms. No. She is not my mother. I guess I will call her Patricia, but that woman cannot be my mother. My mother never stood up for me. My father and my mother are always on the same side. Always, always, always. They are the enemy. Always, always, always. That woman cannot possibly be my mother. Never had I abandoned someone so suddenly. But I have to.

"Alex, dinner's ready," I hear her call up the steps.

I don't respond. Do I really need her cooking?

No. I don't. I can starve for a meal.

So I skip out. I need to stop the sodium from entering my body, anyway.

I can hear her calling again. "Do you hear me? Dinner's ready."

Shut up. I don't need your food.

"Was it the salt last time? If that was it, I promise I put in less this time."

I freeze from how accurate that was. How did you know? How could you possibly know and pinpoint it so quickly? That was scary. But my mind catches onto a single word in the two sentences: promise.

Promises weren't really a thing with me. The only promises I'd ever kept were to Rin. To any other person, and from any other person, they were simply oral contracts that were bound to be broken sooner or later. Promises weren't something I particularly liked. They meant that I was going to be let down, that I would try to rely on words that would soon fall through for me.

"Don't promise me anything, bitch," I breathe. "Don't you dare promise me anything."

"Alex?" I hear her call. "Are you coming?"

"Shut up!" I yell. "Don't promise me anything!"

For the next half hour, I hear nothing but breathing and tears, brought about by myself. I'm so sorry, I want to cry, but I don't want it to sound half-assed, and I can't even figure out why I want to say it in the first place.

***

When I go to sleep that night, I cry myself to sleep, thinking only that I really should apologize to Patricia for being a jerk and to Rin, even though I did nothing to hurt her.