You sit with your face buried between your knees, snuffling your nose and wishing the carpet wasn’t so fluffy and comfortable. Now is a time for hard floors. Your knees are wet with tears. Your sleeve is wet with snot.
Little bits of skeleton are scattered across the carpet, small vertebrae that have skipped across the loops, tiny claws stuck at odd angles. They look so delicate, all disassembled like that.
You turn your face to one side and reach out to the closest pile, but nothing happens, and your chest constricts again. A sob bubbles out of you, wet and gut wrenching.
Even the mice don’t want to be with you.
When the crying slows down again, you look up at the mirror. It is new, and you and your mother haven’t hung it yet. It’s standing on the floor, leaning against the wall where you will mount it when you have time. It’s on the C list, your mother says. Something she’ll get around to eventually.
You stare at your reflection, disgusted. You get why they broke up with you. Your face is blotchy, your eyelashes are sticking together, and your hair is matted because you’ve had your knees pressed against your head. Your eyes are a stupid colour. Your teeth are uneven, the braces are taking forever to fix them.
Another sob wells up in your throat. And you look stupid when you cry. You glare at your reflection as your face contorts.
You mutter, “Asshat” while you cry, but you don’t know if you’re talking about yourself or about them. Maybe it’s both.
Your mother would say it’s definitely them. It’s what she’d called them earlier. You’d been working with her on medium-size recall, a large dog corpse she’d gotten from the animal sanctuary. You were working on integrating it into something for a NecroDance, when your phone had pinged a text from them, saying they didn’t want to date you anymore. They had decided to go off to university to become a banker. You two had discussed what to do in your last year of school, maybe they’d take a gap year, pick up a job. Then you could both do some travelling during the term breaks, and go to the same uni the year after.
They’d never mentioned that they’d put in applications to unis for this year. Or that they wanted to be a banker.
The integrity of your mice constructs tucked in your pocket had collapsed as you’d read the text. The dog skeleton descended into a heap on the ground.
“Asshat,” is what your mother said, when you showed her the text.
“It’s me!” is what you shouted back. “I’m fucking pointless!”
“You’re not –” she’d started. But you’d cut across her, and screamed that she didn’t know, and you were a useless sack of meat, that no one wanted you, not even your constructs.
She’d stood there, looking sad or surprised or both, her two simian constructs continuing to move through the dance’s choreography just behind her.
You couldn’t bear being around the three of them. You’d run up to your room, slammed the door, thrown the bones of your mice down onto the carpet.
Now you’re stuck here with just yourself and your horrible reflection.
Maybe they’ll change their mind, text and take it all back. You check your phone. Nothing. You check four different apps. No posts. You consider sending them another message, but the twenty-seven earlier ones are marked as unread.
Another sob. You pull at a handful of hair, because the pain helps a little. Something outside to match the inside.
There is a gentle knock at the door. It’s your mother’s hand. Her constructs’ bony knuckles make a thumpier noise.
You don’t answer, but she comes in anyway. She carefully walks across the carpet, avoiding the scattered mouse bones. She sits on the floor next to you, her legs straddling your body, and pulls you into her. She did this when you were little, a full-bodied hug, an envelope of mother around child. You let loose another round of stomach muscle aching sobs, and she holds you.
Then: “No one wants me.”
She doesn’t answer.
“My mice don’t even want me.”
Your mother reaches out a hand, and waves it over the nearest bones. They drift together, a few that had scattered further skipping across the carpet to join their skeletal brethren. A little mouse skeleton animates, crawls up your jeans, sits on top of your knee.
“They’re dead, chicky. They don’t want anything.” She squeezes you into her warm, safe body. “You’re angry, and sad. That’s why your recall isn’t working. I know the feeling. We all do. You’ll be able to animate them when you’re feeling more settled.”
“I’ll never feel settled again.” You pet the little mouse construct gently, and it pushes its tiny snoot into your finger.
“I know, chicky.” She squeezes you again and you lean into it. One of her constructs sticks its eyeless head around the door.
“Dinner,” she says to it. “Whatever you want,” she says to you.
“Can we have waffles?” You ask, wiping your nose on your sleeve. Your stomach does a little grumble, and you and your mother both snort-laugh. It doesn’t hurt like the crying did.
“Waffles,” she instructs the monkey. “Start mixing the batter.” It won’t respond to you, only to her. It’s her construct. It flicks a bony thumbs-up, and turns to clatter back down the stairs towards the kitchen.
She turns her attention back to you.
“They’re a person you were keen on. But people come and go. I’m always here for you, and so are the bones of the dead.” She takes your hand in hers, her fingers splayed between yours, both palms facing downwards. She guides your hand over the mouse on your knee, like she did when you were little. It goes limp for a moment, then re-animates.
“There you go,” your mother says. “She’s yours again.”
* This story was actually never a rejection. It was, however, attached to an unpleasant bit of drama, where a lit mag threatened me with legal action. The details of this can be found here (and here for those not on the doomplatform).