“I’m just saying, it’s not something you should just do with the first warm body that comes along. It’s a big step. I hope it was worth it,” she repeats.

Seriously? Now she wants to mother me? Oh, the irony. Oh, the snarky comebacks I want to hurl back at her. But all I say is, “It was.”

“Always seems that way in the moment,” she murmurs, glancing toward the other side of the tugboat. “Trust me. Been there.”

“What do you want from me?” I say. “I mean, do you think we should have waited until we were married or something?”

She doesn’t answer, but the lines of her body are rigid. She’s upset. And I don’t understand. Lucky isn’t a “warm body.” He’s my friend. Why is she trying to spoil this for me? It’s almost like she’s jealous that I had a moment of joy with him.

But that can’t be right.

Maybe it’s what I’ve suspected before about her sex life: that it’s a casino machine that she feeds money into but it never pays out. Something that she does to try to make herself happy, or to distract her from the fact that her life isn’t everything she planned. I’m not sure if her plans went wrong when she got pregnant with me in college or when she had the fight with Grandma five years ago.

Or maybe the fight with Grandma was when she had another realization that everything in her life was messed up.

Whatever it is, I don’t want to argue with her. Because I look at her now, with her arms crossed tightly across her chest, and I’m just sad.

I’m sad that she’s been so unhappy, she’s spent the last few years resenting her own mother, dragging her burden of a daughter with her, moving up and down the coast from cars to motels to cheap apartments. And I’m sad that she can’t commit to a job or a person, or even a stupid pet.

Maybe it’s best that I just shut her out completely going forward, because whatever happens next year with my grandmother and Nepal, I’ve got to get away from her.

If I’m the reason her life didn’t go as planned—

The reason she keeps playing casino games and losing.

The reason she has big blow-out fights with Grandma.

If I’m the reason she’s not happy …

I’ve got to leave.

For both our sakes.