Unfamiliar Son

My mother then shook her head after being satisfied with teasing her son to my dismay and shifted her gaze back to the wardrobe, curiosity burning brighter than ever. 

"But seriously, Luca." She said, narrowing her eyes at me. "If you don't have a girlfriend and you're not secretly cross-dressing, why do you have so many women's clothes?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but she gasped again, clutching her chest like she'd solved another mystery. 

"Wait! Is it because you knew I'd come over drenched from the rain? Are these for me?" Her eyes sparkled, pleased with her own deduction.

"No, Mom! I can't see into the future!" I groaned and shot her a dismayed look. I then glanced at her and continued saying, "And even if I did have that kind of power, I'd use it to make sure you didn't come over in the first place."

Her smile dropped, replaced by a sharp glare. 

"You're such a brat, Luca." She huffed, her eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "I raised you better than to be this mean to your poor, loving mother." She then sighed and continued to ask the question she really wanted to know the answer to. "If it isn't this and it isn't that, then why have you got these clothes, Luca, since I really can't think of any more reasons, silly or not?"

I coughed awkwardly when I saw her enquiring gaze, avoiding her glare. My fingers rubbed the back of my neck as I struggled for the right words, as the real reason wasn't something I was really proud of even though I didn't indulge in it anymore. 

"It's, uh…It's not like that, Mom." I mumbled as I looked all over the room except at her pretty face.

"Then what is it like, Luca? Tell me." She leaned in, eyes wide with suspicion, as I was acting way too weirdly for such a simple question.

I sighed, a flush creeping up my neck as I finally said, 

"It's for, you know…When I have female company over."

Her brow furrowed, confusion clouding her expression. 

"Female company?" She repeated slowly, like she was deciphering a foreign language.

"Yeah..." I said, clearing my throat and avoiding eye contact. "In case a girl stays over and...Umm...Needs clothes in the morning."

Her eyes flickered between me and the wardrobe, processing this new piece of information. Then, her lips parted slightly as realisation dawned. Her jaw tightened, and her cheeks flushed, a mix of bewilderment and irritation taking over.

Her eyes narrowed, cutting through me like lasers.

"So let me get this straight." She said, her voice dangerously calm, and then continued to directly state my shameless business, "These clothes are for the girls who 'slept over' at your place. And because they didn't have anything proper to wear in the morning because the clothes they wore previously were in a 'mangled and wet' state, you graciously provided them with these?" 

She gestured to the expansive collection of women's clothes with a sweeping hand, her tone dripping with sarcasm.

I shifted uncomfortably, avoiding her eyes, and fidgeted with my fingers when I felt her glaring gaze.

"Uh…Something like that." I muttered, nodding ever so slightly, guilt plastered across my face.

Her lips curled into a tight, sarcastic smile. 

"Wow...How gentlemanly of you, Luca." She said, her voice laced with faux admiration. "I must say, I really raised you right."

I chuckled nervously, thinking maybe—just maybe—she was okay with it. 

"Heh, well, you know—"

But before I could finish my sentence, she leaned in, her eyes glinting with a wicked gleam. 

"And yet..." She continued, her tone suddenly sharp. "...for all your decency in buying clothes for these random girls, you don't seem to have the time or interest to go shopping with your own mother—the one who taught you how to be a gentleman in the first place."

I froze, my mouth snapping shut. My throat went dry, and I gulped audibly.

"What's the matter, Luca? Cat got your tongue?" Her smile widened as she crossed her arms, leaning back slightly with an air of triumph. 

I laughed weakly, feeling the weight of her words press down on me. This woman could dismantle me faster than any guilt trip ever could. My mind scrambled for an escape route, but there was none.

"Uh…I can explain?" I offered feebly.

But even though I was going to say that I wasn't 'excessively indulging' myself in women anymore like I did in the past, she suddenly let out a long, weary sigh, the sound stretching between us like a thin thread ready to snap. 

Her eyes fell to the floor, and for a moment, I couldn't read her. Then, she looked up, and the smile that curved her lips wasn't her usual mischievous one...It was smaller, weaker—a smile held together by resignation.

"You know what, Luca?" She said softly, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "You don't need to explain." 

The words settled into the space between us, heavier than they should have been...Like she already understood, like she had long come to terms with a version of me I didn't even realise she knew.

Her eyes found mine, tired yet unwavering. 

"Me and the others…We knew. We've known for a while that you were a bit of a player, playing around with women left and right as if they were toys even though you were so young...We also know that you stopped that 'hobby' of yours since you promised us you would after what 'she' did that day." She said with a humourless chuckle. 

"I just didn't think…" Her voice trailed off, the smile fading. Her gaze flickered over the wardrobe, over the evidence of a life I had lived in the past, and she shook her head. "I didn't think it would go this far, and I'm honestly taken aback that I have to see this part of your life once again."

She didn't sound angry. And she wasn't disappointed, not exactly. 

But there was a sadness in her expression, like she was trying to piece together a puzzle that no longer fit. The hurt in her eyes twisted something deep in my chest. She didn't need to say it out loud for me to know what she was thinking.

'When did this happen? When did her son—her sweet, innocent boy—become this person?'

I could almost feel the weight of her memories pressing against me. The afternoons spent sending me off to school, her hands smoothing my hair as I grinned up at her. The nights she stayed up late, making sure I was tucked in, believing I was still too small to take on the world alone.

Her eyes shimmered with those memories—and the realisation that they belonged to someone who wasn't standing in front of her anymore. 

And maybe she wondered, in that quiet way mothers do, if she had missed something along the way...If I had slipped out of her grasp, changed in ways she couldn't understand because of something she did wrong, silently blaming herself for how I had changed.

But in all honesty it wasn't her fault that I had changed from the sweet little boy she knew to become the disgrace who brought over different girls to the house all the time...It was mine.

The reason I changed, the reason I became someone she could barely recognise, was because I chose to. It was my way of pushing them all away, of hiding the feelings I could never admit to, especially to her. 

I built those walls. I picked up the habits that turned me into a stranger in her eyes, and it was all my fault.

I used to be that shy boy they knew who couldn't even talk to a girl without stumbling over his words. But then I threw myself into meaningless flings and hollow nights, convincing myself that if I drowned in the attention of other women, I could forget...Forget her...Forget all of them.

I thought if I treated it like getting over a bad breakup, maybe I'd heal. Maybe, somewhere in the arms of someone else, I'd find a feeling stronger than the one I was running from. 

But no matter how many women I was with, none of them ever compared. None of them filled the void I was trying so desperately to patch over.

That's why I stopped.

The whole "playboy" act was just a mask, a way to cope with the feelings I couldn't face. I wasn't looking for love. I was looking for an escape...But I never found one. 

I couldn't escape her or the rest of my mother. I couldn't escape the way she looked at me now, as if trying to reconcile the son she remembered with the man standing in front of her or the feelings I have for them.

My mother thought she was to blame, that somehow her love had gone wrong and turned me into this...But the truth was, I was the one who twisted myself out of shape. I was the one who couldn't handle what I felt and tried to hide it behind the chaos I created.

And now, seeing that sadness in her eyes, the quiet ache of a mother who thought she'd lost her child to something she couldn't fix made the weight of it all sink deeper into my chest.