I try not to sigh dramatically, and fail. We stare at each other.

Mom doesn’t like to share much, but Papa and I are close, and he’s filled me in on her childhood. My nana died when Mom was too young to know her. Papa raised Mom alone. Mom had to put herself through college on part-time jobs, scholarships, and loans because Papa couldn’t afford to send her to the fancy art school she wanted to go to.

But she’s probably referring to my greedy, selfish, abandoning jerk-and-a-half father who left us when I was four.

Unless she means me? Am I a boulder?

I walk past Mom, through the kitchen, and into the living room where I settle flat on my back on the carpet. As of late, I usually spend about thirty minutes per day in this spot, staring up at the fake family portrait hanging above the fireplace.

Mom’s face appears, hovering over me. Her amber eyes sear into mine. “What are you doing?” she says flatly.

I stare past her at the ceiling, opting not to respond. Mom’s not usually here for this part of my post-injury routine. She’s only around right now because she had to take off work early to drive me to that horrible appointment.

Mom takes a step, so she’s standing beside my torso, looking down at me.

“I don’t know if you forgot”—she folds her arms across her chest—“but you leave tomorrow for that Rediscover Yourself retreat we looked at a few weeks ago. I think it’s going to be really good for you, especially now.”

Not this again. I close my eyes, freeing some fresh tears. They slip sideways, toward my ears.

Mom’s been pushing me to sign up for a random forest retreat in Colorado curated for people who feel like they’ve lost their way. We clicked around their website last month. I wasn’t into it, but I humored her by agreeing to consider it.

“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want to go,” I say quietly.

Mom shakes her head. “No, this is the whole reason we decided it was a good idea. You need to get out of here. Recenter yourself.”

“We decided it was a good idea because of Bran, Mom, not because of this. I don’t want to go anymore.”

Mom steps back and sits on the living room couch. “It was partly due to what happened with your terrible ex-boyfriend, but we both know it was mostly because of your injury. You said you don’t want to go back to therapy, so you’ll go to the retreat. I’ve already paid and filled out your paperwork.”