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The bottle was cold as Hal lifted it up to his lips and drank from it. His hands were warm and the chill felt good against his skin. He was sitting on the top of his apartment building, staring out into the city. Coast City was truly a sight for sore eyes, especially for his own. It was beautiful all the time, call him biased, but especially whenever the sun was setting. Today it was hues of oranges, brighter where the sun was making its descent, that burst into light pinks. The further the sky expanded from the sun, the more it turned into a deep purple.
Hal cleared his throat, slouching so that his elbows and forearms were resting on the tops on his thighs. His hands dangled between his legs as his right hand held onto the neck of the beer bottle. As he peered down between his feet to the sidewalk that was ten stories away from him, he let out a small chuckle. There was a time that he had been terrified of heights. Ain’t that funny? Him, Hal Jordan — the greatest pilot Ferris had after his father and the best Green Lantern, a space cop, the guardians ever witnessed — scared of heights.
It was true, though. There used to be a lot of things that scared him as a kid before his father died. Snakes, heights, the dark, monsters, needles, and even death itself. There was an instance where he was alone in his bedroom and it was dark. He ran into his parents room and shoved his face in his mother’s neck as he cried. He had convinced himself that there was a monster looming in his closet.
She had quietly shushed him, kissed the top of his head, between all that thick, brown hair, and gathered him in her arms as she rubbed his back. It had soothed him, her warmth. Enough to where his cries were only small little hiccups and his eyes grew heavy again with sleep. When he would awake the next morning, he was back in his bed.
Those were… better days. The days before his father had passed away were much more brighter in Hal’s memory than the days after his death. After his dad died, he didn’t seem to really fear anything. What can you fear when you watch your father explode in front of you and die in a fiery blaze? Those days, he mostly rebelled. He was the middle kid, after all, mostly forgotten by his poor, widowed mother. She didn't exactly have the patience for his bad behavior, and oftentimes she was mad at him more than she was pleased. Maybe he yearned to be held again deep down. She would be called to the school and forced to pick Hal up and take him home, and he secretly liked the small amount of time that they spent together in the car on the drive home. Even if she was angry at him.
After that, things turned even more sour. They say you eventually grow closer to your parents after you get older and grow out of your teen phases of life. But that wasn’t the case for Hal. Maybe it was for his brothers, who still received their mother’s love in great increments. Enough that there wasn't anymore left for him, but… Hal frowned at the memory. His brothers were at her grave now, lying flowers on it and “catching” her up. Alongside their dad. Hal never really felt that invited whenever he was there. Maybe it was because he didn’t deserve to cause her to stir in her grave with his presence. She deserved to rest.
He took another swig of his beer and sighed out. After his father died, it was like he had given all his fear to his mother. She refused to have him be so intrigued by even the mere thought of flying that she forbade it, but Hal? He couldn’t let that go. As he grew older, he knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life. And, whenever he was able to, he signed up for the Air Force. It was against his mother’s wishes. She had begged and screamed and pleaded for him not to go, but Hal, the ever stubborn man he was becoming, simply just rolled his eyes and snuck out at night while she was asleep. what he didn't know was that first step out of the door towards the Air Force would break his and his mother’s bond for the rest of her life.
A part of him blamed himself, for her development of cancer. Logically, he knew that was far from the truth, but the guilt ridden part of his brain gnawed and told him that maybe if he didn’t nearly kill her over with a heart attack every day growing up, that maybe she’d still be alive. That wasn’t true. In the end, he just wanted to make her proud and she didn't want anything to do with him. In her mind, she probably only counted two sons instead of three. He didn't even get to say goodbye, why does he deserve to wish her a “Happy Mother's Day” when she probably regretted her second son.
Hal watched a droplet of water splash onto the concrete that his legs dangled from. At first he had thought that it was about to rain, until he felt a tear fall down his cheek and fall right next to the first droplet. The hot concrete greedily soaked up the wetness and dried it instantly and he sniffled softly, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand. He blamed himself for a lot of things. Maybe he had once selfishly wished that he didn’t have a mother anymore to celebrate Mother's Day with, that it would have made his complicated feelings easier, but he was wrong. He couldn’t have been further from the truth. His mother’s death, only made things harder.
His wanted to have been able to say goodbye, to say he was sorry for all the suffering he put her through after his dad’s death. He wanted her to smile, even if it would have been weakly, at him and tell him that she forgave him. Maybe then he would be able to understand and navigate this whole grieving thing better. He would be at her grave, with Jim and Jack, filling her in about his life too. He wondered if she would be proud of him now. Probably not, he was still flying. Worst of all, he was flying at the same place dad flew at. He wondered if she even used her angel wings that she was granted with after death. Maybe dad was teaching her that she has nothing to be scared of.
Hal let out a small laugh, a smile spreading on his face as tears clouded and blurred his view of the sidewalk. He sat up, placed his bottle down beside him, and leaned back onto his hands as he blinked the tears away.
“Is that why the sky’s all pretty today?” The words were barely above a whisper.
He could see it now, dad being the best flier up there with those pearly white wings and teaching mom how to use them. Coaxing her to see there had been nothing at all to be scared of. Maybe now they were dancing together, like how they did in the living room when he was just a kid. He would sit and watch, knees pulled up to his chin and then he would hastily get up to replay the record on the player. He loved watching them dance. Everything dad did was with confidence, and he could see that mom was so sure in his every move, dancing or not, that she confidently followed. That’s how he imagined them now. And maybe, after she saw that flying wasn’t so bad after all, she would be incredibly proud of him and say that she was sorry too.