““Mikey was just as bad! They both did that shit all the time! You were just too blind to see it! It could’ve been either of them! What would you say about Mikey, then? If he’d been driving that day instead?” “You end things with that boy,” she said. “You end them today or else.” “Or else what? What are you going to do? Cut me off? Send me away? I’m almost twenty-six years old!” She looked right at me. I was trembling, but it didn’t matter. I still held her gaze. “It’s your family or him,” she said. “You can’t have both. I won’t survive it.” I shook my head. And then, before she could see me fall apart, I turned and walked away. It was the easiest decision I’d ever made.””
![“Sometimes, in looking at me, her face froze into an expression of pity without a glimmer of compassion. I had often been characterized by someone – a priest, a teacher, a girl, a classmate; but in that silent look of my mother's I felt not only characterized but seen through and condemned [...]…” quote by Peter Handke; Ralph Manheim [trans](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/75a/peter-handke-ralph-manheim-tra_compassion_sometimes-in-looking-at-me-her-face-froz_332964.jpg)
