Scramble
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 3
The next morning, I was actually up early for school. I wasn’t training with Coach Greer, since I was going to be doing track, which meant I didn’t have to be at school till like eight-fifteen or so.
Dad had worked the late shift the night before, covering for someone, and wasn’t home yet. Although he didn’t work overnight often, when he did, he was almost never home before I had to leave for school.
More surprising was that Mom was up, in the kitchen and dressed for work. She’d been calling out a lot lately, and I don’t think she’d done a morning shift since well before Christmas.
I stopped for a second to watch her as she poured herself a cup of coffee, and something just seemed off about her. Either her hand or arm was shaking a bit, because the coffee was sloshing around in the pot, and a few drops kept missing the cup, splashing on the counter instead.
She set the pot back and then gripped the counter, although I don’t know if she was just pausing, or if she was actually holding herself up.
“Morning,” I said, trying not to be loud or startle her.
“Good morning,” she said, managing a weak smile.
“Dad home yet?”
“No, not yet,” she said, pushing herself off the counter and carrying her coffee mug to the table, setting it down next to a slice of dry toast.
I tried not to make a face as I grabbed a bowl and the cereal and joined her at the table. Mom raised her coffee to her lips, took a small sip, then set it down and stared at the table.
“You okay?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“Hmm?” She looked up, blinking. “Oh. Fine. Just thinking about my appointment schedule today.”
“So you’re going into work?”
“Yes,” she said, her reply a little short.
I don’t know if she was feeling self-conscious about all the work she’d missed, or if she had an argument with someone about it, but she was definitely a little hostile.
So I just got quiet again, spooning cereal into my mouth and watching her out of the corner of my eye. She hadn’t touched her toast.
I was about to try and say something else when she jerked upright in her chair. The sudden movement startled me enough that I dropped my spoon, spilling some cereal on the table. Her body swayed, tipping dangerously to one side. The coffee mug tilted in her hand, dark liquid sloshing out of the side, across the table and onto the floor.
I lunged across the table, grabbing her arm before she could slide off the chair. It was the arm holding the mug, since that was the side of her closest to me, and hot coffee splashed across my arm, hot enough to sting.
I reached across with my other hand and took the mug from her, setting it on the table while I tried to hold her up. Mom’s other hand clutched the edge of the tabletop, her knuckles white with the effort of keeping herself upright.
I got up out of my seat, trying to get around the table while holding her up at the same time.
Not the easiest of maneuvers. Her face twisted with pain, eyes squeezing shut as she tried to pull up the hand now freed from a coffee cup to her temple. I managed to get around to her and put my arm around her side before she could pull free of my grip to keep her from falling over again.
I’d seen her get headaches before, but nothing like this. The color had drained from her face, leaving her lipstick looking garish against her pale skin.
“Let me help you to the couch so you can lie down,” I said.
She shook her head, waving me off. “It’s nothing.”
She pushed herself shakily up from the table, kind of listing into me for a second as she regained her balance, before standing up on her own, her legs shaking.
“That wasn’t nothing.” I kept my hand hovering near her elbow, ready to catch her if she fell.
“I’m fine, Blake.”
She was annoyed, but she also still had her eyes squeezed shut against the light, which meant she was absolutely not fine.
“You should sit...”
“I said I’m fine.”
She pushed away from me, her movements unsteady as she headed for the kitchen cabinets. I watched her steps weave slightly, like someone who’d had one too many drinks, except it was seven-thirty in the morning and she hadn’t had anything.
She yanked open the cabinet door and began rummaging frantically through the contents. Bottles of vitamins and supplements toppled over as her hands pushed them aside. Finally, she pulled out a small amber bottle of oil and a large vitamin container.
“Mom, what’s going on?” I asked, moving closer.
Her fingers shook as she unscrewed the oil bottle. She dabbed it at her temples, letting loose an overwhelming scent of peppermint. Setting that aside, she opened the vitamin bottle and tipped several pills into her palm. I looked at the bottle and saw that it had all these warnings that it didn’t make any claim to help anything and was for “general wellness.”
She filled a glass with water and swallowed the pills in two gulps. Then she just stood there, hand braced against the counter, staring at the wall above the sink.
The look in her eyes scared me more than anything else. They were vacant, unfocused, like she was seeing something beyond the kitchen wall. Or nothing at all.
“Mom?” I said.
No response.
“Mom.” I said it louder this time.
She didn’t even blink. Just kept staring at nothing, her body perfectly still except for the slight tremor in her hands.
I placed my hand on her shoulder, giving it a light squeeze. “Mom!”
She blinked rapidly, looking around the kitchen like she was trying to figure out where she was. Her eyes settled on me for a second before she finally seemed to snap to.
“What time is it?” she asked, glancing at the clock. “Damn it. I need to get going. Mrs. Henshaw has a nine o’clock appointment, and she’s always early.”
She set the glass down and began gathering her things, moving around the kitchen quickly but still with a fair amount of unsteadiness.
“I think you should skip work today. You don’t seem well.”
Mom scoffed, pulling her purse from the hook by the door. “I can’t just cancel appointments because I didn’t sleep well.”
“That wasn’t just being tired. You almost fell over.”
“Blake, don’t exaggerate.” She checked her purse for her wallet. “I just got up too fast. It happens.”
I didn’t point out she hadn’t been getting up at all.
Instead, I said, “And what about when you were staring at the wall? I called your name three times.”
“I was thinking. People are allowed to think.”
“Not like that. You weren’t here, Mom. It was like you checked out completely.”
She sighed dramatically. “I appreciate the concern, but I’m late.”
I knew exactly how seriously Mom took her salon appointments. In my dream life, she’d dragged herself to work even when she could barely function. Her job was more than income—it was her identity, her connection to the community, the one thing that was just hers. Even as her condition had worsened, she’d kept working until they’d made her stop because her condition deteriorated so badly.
That had been the beginning of everything really falling apart for her, when she’d lost her job.
But I’d been thinking about it and I don’t remember her being bad until after Dad died. It seemed like she was getting worse faster than she had in my dream, but that didn’t make any sense. Everything else was progressing exactly the same as it had the other time, except for when I changed things.
But I hadn’t changed anything about her health. So, I couldn’t figure out how she was the one thing that was changing. What had I done?
I pushed that thought aside and stepped between her and the door. “I’m worried about you. This isn’t normal.”
“Normal?” She gave a short laugh. “What would you know about normal? You’re fourteen.”
“I know people don’t just zone out and forget where they are. I know hands don’t shake like that for no reason.”
I gestured toward her fingers, which still trembled slightly as she held her purse.
“I don’t need my teenager diagnosing me. What I need is to get to work. Now move.”
“At least let me drive you. You shouldn’t be behind the wheel right now.”
“You don’t have a license.”
“I know how to drive.”
That was true, although how to explain that I knew it from another life was impossible.
“You do not, and you don’t have a license, now move,” she said, trying to step around me again.
“Mom, please. Just call in sick. One day. You can reschedule everybody.”
“I am the parent here, not you. I make the decisions about what I can and can’t do. You need to worry about yourself.”
“I am worried about you.”
“Well, don’t be. I’ve been taking care of myself since before you were born. Now move!” She said, getting angry.
I sighed and stepped aside before this became something bigger than I could control. As she stormed outside, I moved to the living room window and watched as she walked to her car. She wasn’t weaving as much as she had been, but she was still very unsteady.
I considered calling Dad, but he was already on his way home from work and it wasn’t like there were cell phones, yet. Plus, Mom would be furious if I went behind her back like that. He already knew how much trouble she was having. They argued about it like three times a week.
So, all I could do was stand aside and watch while she fell apart.
I pushed open the door to the boys’ bathroom near the field house. Track tryouts were this afternoon and Eduardo was really excited about it, which I hadn’t expected. I was still kind of iffy on it, especially after the episode with Mom the day before, but Dad had said he knew about it and was trying to deal with it.
I didn’t know what that meant, since being aware of it and doing something about it were two different things. I tried to explain to him that I knew she had some kind of illness the same way I knew about the sports stuff, but he shut me down before I could even get the words out.
I think he was mostly trying not to think about it.
I pushed it away since, if I was going to do this track thing, I needed to focus. I also needed to get off whatever the crap was on my hand, that I’d picked up when I’d grabbed the railing coming down the stairs to head out to the field house.
Why were people so gross?
The bathroom was empty, which wasn’t surprising. School was done for the day and everyone was headed to the parking lot or the buses, and the field house was at the back of the school. I turned on the faucet and stuck my hands under the lukewarm water, trying to scrub whatever the hell it was off without thinking too much about it.
It didn’t help that when I pumped the soap dispenser, nothing came out. So I did the best I could by just rubbing the hell out of my fingers with water not hot enough to kill germs and then wiped them off on my pants.
Because, of course, there weren’t any paper towels either.
I was only half looking up as I turned to head out of the bathroom, almost running face-first into Elijah. He looked as shocked as I did, but that shock switched to a sneer when his brain caught up and he realized who he’d almost hit.
“Well, well. Look who it is,” he said, letting the door swing shut behind him and putting himself between me and it. “Mr. high and mighty, himself.”
I tried to move past him, but he blocked me, not letting me get around. The only way to get past was going to be by pushing him, and I knew he was looking for a reason to escalate things.
“Look, man. It’s the first week,” I said, taking a step back. “I don’t want any trouble, so can we just not?”
Elijah’s mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “That’s too bad, because you’ve got trouble.”
Before I could react, he shoved me hard. Both his hands hit my chest, sending me stumbling backward until my spine cracked against the tile wall.
I pushed myself off the wall and got my balance. “What the hell is your problem?”
Elijah didn’t answer. Instead, he threw a wild punch aimed at my face. I jerked sideways, causing his fist to glance off my shoulder.