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When the call comes she’s sitting in her office looking out at the clouds. It’s a brilliant summer day, one of those hot ones with the poofiest of clouds that rise high into the sky, white and perfectly towering. It’s a special ringtone because Rumi is, despite everything, because of everything, because of how it all is, special to her. She’s held those hands over so many years, lifted that small frame over steps and onto counters, watched those determined eyes pick themselves up from little scrapes and trips and falls.
So when Rumi calls, Celine picks up on the second ring.
“Rumi?”
“Celine,” comes the surprised sound. “Hi.”
A pause.
“Sorry, you’re not busy, are you?”
One is busy when there are other higher priorities to attend to, she thinks, and nothing could possibly be a higher priority than Rumi.
She says nothing of that sort.
“No, not at all,” she says. “Is something wrong?”
Rumi doesn’t call very much because she’s always been a practical, smart kid. Good head on that set of shoulders, never really needing for too much. She’d known what she was meant to do and always knew what she needed to get it. Well—
Celine swallows down the lump that has risen in her throat.
“No,” Rumi’s voice comes through a little awkward, with a little laugh, “nothing’s wrong. I was just y’know, thinking about things and uhm—” there’s a short breath “—I realized recently that I never really told you I loved you.”
The world rings in her ears and something shifts within her, slides into place, clicks perfectly, a part of Celine’s soul that she must have forgotten, brown eyes in the summer sun, the weight of a small hand in hers, a dense too-warm heat from where Rumi fell asleep from the long trek back to the car from the grace of her mother, the knowledge that now everything was different.
“Sorry about being mad about—”
How long has it been since she’s not had to worry? How long has it been since Rumi’s focus hasn’t been entirely on HUNTR/X and—
The piece shifts further and slides between her ribs like a blade.
“You’re a guest on that show today,” Celine says, almost outside of herself as her eyes drift over the picture on her desk of Rumi hugging a too-large teddy bear. “Is this part of it? A prank call?”
The heartbeat of silence tells her everything.
Her heart crumbles, disappears into ash, vaporizes in the wind, and dissipates forever. But Celine doesn’t need a heart to function. She’s known this for the longest time.
“I’m so sorry! I had nobody else to call.”
“That’s alright,” Celine says as she picks the pieces up one by one with bleeding fingers and tucks them away where Rumi will never find them.
“They told us we needed to call family and make them say ‘I love you’,” she can hear the biting of Rumi’s nails, can feel the world closing in and around her to this one point. “And uhm, well, you’re the closest thing I have to a mom.”
She gives herself just enough time to swallow down the tears that are building because she can sit and think about what this all means later, because Rumi needs something from her and it is the easiest few words she never thought she’d ever get to say.
“I love you,” says Celine. “I mean that.”
She hangs up before Rumi can hear her cry.
There’s a knock to her office later that evening. Celine startles out from her documents and her spreadsheets, looks over the rim of her glasses. She knows it is Rumi who opens the door because Rumi’s the only one she hasn’t ever told off for surprising her.
She’s thought about it, but one look at that face and she’s weak. She’s weak. She’s always been so, so weak.
“Hey,” Rumi says, fingers pressed together. “Uhm, I just wanted to talk about the call.”
“Right.” Celine takes her glasses off since she doesn’t need them for this, watches Rumi follow the action with her gaze.
“Yeah, so uhm—”
“I did mean it,” Celine says slowly. “It wasn’t just for the audience. I—” she swallows “—I do love you, Rumi. All of you.”
Rumi’s eyes light up and if Celine isn’t mistaken there’s a ripple of brilliant gold that flits across the marks on Rumi’s face. They’re beautiful and though they are a slap in the face of those words she couldn’t say before, she welcomes the sting as a reminder of how far they’ve come.
“I know,” Rumi says and now there’s a look of determination on her face. “And I meant it too.”
Celine blinks, slowly, a few times.
“All of it,” Rumi says. “I know we’ve had our differences, I know it can’t have been easy, I’m not easy—” her eyes dart out to the door and Celine’s heart softens immediately the way Rumi’s look softens “—I’m not easy to love, but you did and you do and I think I’ve always felt like it was hard because it wasn’t just the way I wanted it.”
Celine’s mouth opens even though there are words she cannot take back.
“But it was never just the way you wanted it either, and I know you’ve always wanted the best for me. Maybe we disagreed on what that is once—” the sly child smiles and even that softens further “—but we’ve both grown. I meant every part of what I said. I called you because I wanted you to say it.”
A pause.
“I only lied about one thing,” grins Rumi.
Celine stares at the rising of the stars in the sky.
“I called you because I wanted to hear you say it to me, Mom.”