Angie had cried all of her tears out at school. As she made her lonely way along dirty sidewalks and through quiet suburbs, she found instead that a hollow black numbness was filling her up. It wasn't quite a void of feeling, so much as a feeling of void. There were still emotions there; but instead of running swift and strong like a river, they pulled at her with all the invisible, irresistible force of the tides.
If this dictaphone really was magic, then the world would have hell to pay. If it wasn't, and this was just one last humiliation... Well, she would cross that bridge when she came to it.
Angie was so out of it, her mind so elsewhere with different schemes and ideas, that it didn't even register to her to notice that her mother's car was in the driveway when she finally arrived home. As soon as she opened the door, however, she heard her mother's voice ring out: "Angie?"
Angie froze. This hadn't been planned. She didn't feel like she was in a state to see any other human right now, let alone her mother. Some part of her felt she would be disappointed at the weakness her daughter had -
But before she could even think to flee, Angie found herself enveloped in the tightest, warmest hug that she had received in a while. "Oh, Angie, there you are. I came as soon as I heard. I am so, so sorry that happened to you."
Angie said nothing, even as her mother moved back for a moment to look her in the eye. There was the expected motherly concern there, as she looked deep over Angie's face, as though trying to read what was written inside her head. But then, Angie could also see something she rarely saw on her mother's face - anger. And a lot of it.
"I know it's the last thing you want to hear right now, and I know you probably don't believe me. That's fine," she said, "But I need you to hear that I understand. When I was in high school, I went through exactly the same thing. The bullying, the teasing, the humiliation, even in front of big groups of people. I often thought I wouldn't make it out. But I did. And once I got to college, all my hard work started paying off, and I met your dad, and I had you..."
She cut herself off, and from the quaver of her lip, Angie thought she might have done so before she started crying herself. "I'd thought things might have been better these days. More enlightened. But it doesn't matter. You and me, Angie: we are going to get through this. And we are going to be happy together."
Angie had never seen her mother so emotional before. Against the onslaught of genuine care and affection, so different from what she'd just had, she felt her numbness receding; the tidal darkness in her that had seemed so inevitable giving way... and the tears returning. She buried her head back into her mother's shoulder and began crying again.
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