Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Mina
Thomas: I think you need to put yourself in your mom’s shoes. She only wants the best for you, and they’re usually always right. I’m just saying that maybe you shouldn’t be so harsh on her.
Istare at his message in the darkness, rereading it, and stare blankly some more. We’ve been exchanging messages all day, and I stupidly let him in on my issues. Is he right? Are my parents right? Am I really the problem?
I mean, Mom has been right about everything so far. This hobby of mine will end eventually, and I need to think more seriously about my future. But that’s not completely true—my preorders are going well. I have a real shot of making it . . . I think.
And then what?
What if it flops after release?
What if I try putting out another book and slip right back to where I am, questioning whether to move on?
Mom’s voice is still ringing in my ears from her call to me a couple hours ago. Part of me saw it coming. It’s why I didn’t leave her apartment last night feeling optimistic and pleased about how the dinner turned out.
She was going to find something wrong. She always does.
This time it was how I reached across the table for food when Jacob apparently wanted it. And the two times I didn’t lower my spoon softly enough, and I looked ugly when I showed too much of my teeth when I smiled, and, of course, how I responded unfavorably to the topic of school and writing.
I knew she wouldn’t let it go. I saw her response coming from a mile away.
Apply to school now so you actually have a future.
It’s time to give up and move on to the next open door. God is giving you a second chance.
You have to remember that one day you’ll have kids, and you want to be a mother they can be proud of.
I roll onto my side, hugging the comforter. My thumbs hover over the screen. I don’t know what to reply to Thomas with.
It’s easy for him to say all that when he has a mother like Agnes, and a family who supports him that he gets along with.
Thomas is a happy person, and happy people just don’t get it.
They can’t relate to anything because they haven’t experienced trauma, or the internal battle of doing something as simple as getting out of bed or showering because the mind is too heavy or blank.
My phone vibrates in my hand. I tense, expecting to see something from Mom or Thomas, but as it turns out, not even a text from Leo can cheer me up.
Leo: I doubt Costco sells acid strong enough to hide a body. I’d rather you prove me wrong. It’d be good knowledge to have. For legal reasons, obviously.
It takes me a second to recall what he’s talking about. My last message to him was before his away game and was loosely around research I was doing for my book. I guess the game has ended now. And I didn’t even have it playing in the background like I usually do.
Taking a deep breath, I fire off the only thing I can think of saying.
Mina: It’d be convenient.
Leo: A woodchipper and a nice big lake would be a good alternative. Messy. But possible. Could buy one secondhand or get one on hire, then do a thorough clean down.
Mina: Yeah. Good point.
This time, my hands tremble when I click Send. There’s a voice at the back of my head whispering that he’s going to stop talking to me forever now that he knows I’m a pathetic, sad mess. Despite the fear ringing in my head, I can’t muster up anything else to say.
I’m empty. I’m upset. I’m hurt. I’m feeling sorry for myself, and I don’t know how to make my mom love me.
Leo: In the alternative, concrete. The evidence won’t permanently disappear, but no one is about to find it.
Mina: Ooh. Smart.
Leo: Okay, start talking. Your messages haven’t been longer than three words.
I drop my head back against the pillow and stare up at the pitch-black ceiling, debating whether to admit I’m not infallible or perfect, and that I have baggage no life raft is going to fit.
Our entire relationship has been built on false pretenses, and I’m exhausted from wading through all my lies. I’m vulnerable and delicate, and I don’t want to keep being someone else I’ll never be.
Mina: It’s my mother.
I hold my breath and wait for a response that comes far quicker than I expect.
Leo: Ah. The reason you’re comfortable with messaging strangers online.
His message makes me huff out a laugh. I think my father can take some blame for that too.
If only Leo knew just how comfortable I am with things involving him.
Mina: Do you have the same brand of mommy issues that makes you do the same?
A ghost of a smile plays at my lips as I hit Send, and the voice that was whispering in my ear disappears. I don’t think Leo is going to hate me for being me.
Leo: Seeing as I haven’t spoken to either one of my parents since I left high school, I hate to say I can throw daddy issues into the mix.
That makes sense. The last time I found a photo of them together was almost a decade ago. But I’m still surprised. He and Sabrina are two peas in a pod with how much they hang out.
Mina: Did you go no contact by choice?
Leo: Yes and no.
Mina: What happened?
Leo: Story for a story?
I grind my teeth, hesitating. It’s hard to get rid of my doubts even though I have no reason to believe he’ll shut me down for being honest about my family.
When Leo and I finally take it to the next step, he’s going to find out about it anyway. I might as well rip this particular Band-Aid off.
Mina: As long as you go first.
Seeing the three little dots immediately pop up makes my uncertainty creep away that I might’ve said the wrong thing. This will be the first time Leo’s opened up to me about his past. It’s not like he’s ever been closed off; rather, the opportunity has never presented itself.
Leo: I had a friend who I considered my brother, and my parents started to recognize him as their son.
We were opposites when it came to some things.
I had trouble with anger and authority figures, so I always got in trouble at school.
He had never been called into the principal’s office before.
Dad thought he was the perfect influence on me.
Leo: At the time, I didn’t notice that he was trying to isolate me from friends and girlfriends. I was young and too stupid to see he was doing the same thing with my parents. It was all part of his grand plan to integrate himself into my life.
Leo: When I eventually stopped being fucking blind and opened my eyes, I cut him off. It was too late, though. My parents believed him over me.
My eyes widen further with each message that comes through. Who is he talking about? All the photos I could find of his childhood consisted of hockey, Sabrina, and Mitchell. No one else.
No mom or dad in any picture, or grandparents smiling cheesily at the camera. This must be why I only found his family through Sabrina’s social media.
At least there’s some solace in the fact that he didn’t leave his family and end up by himself. He has two people who seem to have stuck around through thick and thin, and I know without a shadow of a doubt that Sabrina loves her brother to the moon and back.
Mina: What did he do?
Leo: Planted drugs in my room, then ran to them saying he was worried about how I’d been acting weird.
I spent the last year of high school locked in my room if I wasn’t at work, practice, or school.
My dad couldn’t even look at me. Mom made me eat dinners in my room whenever he came home and joined them at the table.
But even before then, I could see how they were favoring him over me.
Fucking hell.
Leo would’ve been, what? Seventeen? Then to spend years before that trusting someone, thinking they always had his back, choosing them as his second family, only to be betrayed. And not just by a so-called friend, but by the people who raised him.
It doesn’t take much effort to imagine being in his shoes when my mother has been comparing me to other people since the day I was born. Telling me how much better they are, how happy she’d be if she had a daughter like them.
She’s never gone out and replaced me, even though I’m sure she thinks about it every time she remembers I exist. My heart twists, picturing it happening.
Mina: Tell me karma hit the asshole?
Leo: It will one day.
That’s not good enough in my books.
I gnaw on the inside of my cheek, imagining myself telling my mother never to contact me again because of all the times she’s hurt my feelings. All I can feel thinking about it is fear and regret.
Mina: How did it feel when you moved out and stopped talking to them altogether?
Leo: Liberating.
Leo: Your turn.
I blow out a breath. After hearing his story, I don’t particularly want to tell him mine. I just sound . . . whiny. Or maybe like an ungrateful brat.
Mina: My issues aren’t interesting in the slightest. It’s all textbook and boring.
Leo: There isn’t a single thing about you that bores me.
Heat colors my cheeks, and I burrow deeper beneath the covers. Still, it doesn’t make me feel any better telling him.
Mina: My mom wants one thing out of my life, and I want another.
Leo: And what do you want?
That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? At the end of the day, what I want will never happen. My dreams are unrealistic, and that’s why they’re called dreams.
Mina: To be myself. Do what I want. Live out my dreams. Have my parents’ pride be something attainable and not a myth. It’s the classic tale of never knowing what it feels like to be good enough because the woman who birthed me will forever be disappointed in the creature she made.
Leo: Promise me something.
Mina: What?
Leo: If anyone tries to make you feel less than, you cut them off and tell them to get fucked.
I take a deep breath. If only it were as easy as he makes it sound. And as stressful and awful as being in my mother’s presence is, there’s always that dreaded what if.
What if she was right about everything, and I need to fall back onto something? What if I can’t afford a roof over my head? What if Joyce leaves me, and I need to try to find a place to live on my own?
Despite every cruel thing my mother says, she’d give me back my own room in a heartbeat.
Aside from that, saying no to my Asian mother just isn’t in our vocabulary. It’s such a foreign concept that sounds like it’ll blow up in my face like every other time I’ve done such a feat. Shifting careers was already like Armageddon.
Mina: She’s my mother. She literally kept me alive well beyond the time I was capable enough to leave the nest. I can’t cut my mother off or tell her no.
Leo: Why not?
Mina: She’s my mother.
Leo: So she gets a free pass to treat you like shit?
Yes.
That’s exactly what it means.
Mina: It’s hard to understand. We have different family dynamics and cultures.
Leo: An asshole is an asshole whether you’re related to them or not. I know they’re the only family you have, but what does that matter if the people meant to bring you up are constantly tearing you down?
Mina: I know you’re right. I know what needs to be done, but I can’t bring myself to lose that safety net because what if I regret it, you know?
Leo: If it helps, there hasn’t been a day where I’ve ever wished I made a different choice about walking away.
I set my phone down and stare at the ceiling, asking myself a question I don’t think I’ll ever be able to answer: would I rather be free, but lonely and unhappy, or shackled and just as unhappy?