Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Mina
“You alright?” Leo asks.
I’m trying not to cry, actually, but I think you already know that. “As good as can be expected.”
Every time I look up from my lap to my parents’ house, bile lurches up my throat. I don’t want to be here, or do this, or say another word to either of them, but I must.
Mom never responded to my text. Frankly, I would’ve avoided this whole thing if a bunch of my stuff weren’t still at her house.
I’d rather die than deal with confrontation.
Alas, fuck.
Leo squeezes my hand reassuringly. “This can’t be harder than hiding a body.”
How do I tell him that I’ve lost more sleep over thoughts about cutting Mom off than I have in the week since Leo and I drove across state lines to dump Jack’s body?
We even drove all the way back to Chicago and did touristy shit for a couple of days, and pretended like we weren’t getting away with murder.
We made the Airbnb evidence free. Then cleaned and disposed of the knife in a random public dumpster.
We did the same thing with our clothes. Got rid of Jack’s car.
Solidified our alibis. Invested in color corrector and concealer to hide the bruises on Leo’s face, and iced the hell out of Leo’s ribs.
I even used my new Photoshop skills to edit all our pictures we posted so we’re mark free.
The police found Jack’s body the next day, and within hours, it was all over the news. No one wasted any time calling Leo to grill him with questions.
Nobody’s come knocking on our door since, and I can’t run from my problems any longer.
This past week of radio silence from my mother has been fucking blissful. The anxiety over Jack is there, but otherwise, I feel like I’m frolicking through a goddamn meadow with how good life has been.
No more blackmailing. No mother to make me hate myself. Just me and the man who treats me like I’m a fucking princess.
I take one final, solidifying breath. “Let’s do this.”
He stops me before I can get out of the car. “Just remember that I’ll be right beside you.”
I have half a mind to tell him to stay right where he is, so he doesn’t witness Mom’s level ten explosion, but I remember how perfect the situation is. Mom will never go nuclear if someone else is around.
I nod gratefully because the lump in my throat makes it too hard to speak. He rounds the car and grabs my hand once we’re on the sidewalk.
It’s a strange, melancholic feeling approaching the front door of your childhood home for what must be the last time. What’s stranger is the lack of regret sitting in my chest. The weight comes from the dread of the next step and the minutes to come, but beneath it is excitement.
Leo’s solid presence is comforting, like I don’t need to keep turning around and asking a series of what-ifs that could make me chicken out.
Whether it’s habit or a false sense of self-preservation, I try to tug my hand out of Leo’s grip because my brain is convinced that it’ll somehow make Mom less angry. He refuses to let go, and I’m grateful for it. She doesn’t get to dictate my life anymore.
My breathing, on the other hand? It’s shallow and stuttered, and I’m getting lightheaded from the nausea. The ringing in my ears is making this whole thing worse.
My steps slow. Maybe I’ll do this at the end of the week, right before we leave. That way I can leave this city burned to the ground and not sit in the fire for a couple days.
I’m stalling. I know it. Leo knows it. This is what I want, but I’m frightened to do it, even though there’s no universe where Leo would let something bad happen to me.
“We can do this tomorrow—” he offers when we’re a few feet from the door.
“No,” I cut him off. “We’re here now.” Rip this fucking Band-Aid off so I can breathe.
“You’re doing the right thing.” Coming from someone who’s been down this road before, it’s slightly reassuring.
It’s a miracle I don’t keel over and start dry heaving after I knock on the front door. I want to crawl out of my skin and run away screaming. This is somehow worse than hiding under a bed thinking Jack Norton was going to kill me.
That’s a warning sign if there ever was one—one that will likely keep a therapist in business. I’m more afraid of my mother than someone who actively planned on murdering me.
The seconds might as well be hours as we wait for her to come to the door. Dad is at work, and Mom’s car is out front. She’ll be here. No doubt about it.
The circles Leo rubs over my hand don’t feel at all soothing when I can hear her coming.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I whisper just before she opens the door.
The friendly smile slides right off her face when she sees Leo, and she manages to make the clouds block the sun when her attention fixes on me.
My knuckles turn white on my hand gripping Leo’s. She says nothing. He says nothing either; I told him I want to be the one dealing with this. I don’t want to be the one to break the silence, but somehow doing it makes me feel like I’m the one in control.
“I’m here to get my things.” My throat bobs, but by the mercy of a divine being, my voice stays even.
“Okay.” Her pitch is a couple of notes higher than usual, smug and very “do what you want” but in a condescending way.
It’s the tone she uses when she pretends she isn’t hurt, but is planning all the ways she can get back at you.
Mom turns around and goes back to whatever she was doing, leaving me and Leo to walk to my old room without her hovering. So far, so good, but this is too easy. Something is bound to happen. She’ll say some snide comment or be difficult in some way.
But she doesn’t. Not once does she come out to watch us box up my things and load them up into Mitchell’s pickup we’re borrowing.
By the end of it, there’s a single bed and a dresser to prove I lived there.
I’ve taken anything that matters to me, like my childhood pictures and some art I made as a kid, in case Mom throws it all out.
“I’m going to tell her goodbye before we go,” I say uneasily.
It doesn’t sit right with me to just slam the door shut and leave without a word.
“If that’s what you think is best.” Leo reaches for my hand again, and the same nauseating trepidation starts up once more.
Her lack of reaction has rattled me, but I won’t lie and say that I’m grateful for it. I know she’s not doing it for my benefit. She’d be twisting it in her head somehow. I’ll say my piece, then part ways.
I find her in the kitchen rolling up lumpia to freeze for easy-to-make meals throughout the week. She doesn’t look up, and my stomach drops.
“I—” My voice breaks, and Leo inches closer to give me the strength I need. “I’m going to go.”
No response.
My eyes burn with unshed tears. I’m her fucking daughter. Can’t she look at me? Do I abhor her that much? She gave birth to me. I did almost everything she ever wanted, and I was a good daughter. But it wasn’t enough for her.
Nothing I do will ever please her because there will never be a day that she’s content with herself and her life until she does her own soul searching.
Beneath the sadness is anger. Anger that she can’t offer me the respect of her attention. Anger that I was drowning, and she didn’t care. Anger that after a lifetime of what I’ve endured, it’s amounted to nothing.
I only wish I did this sooner.
Taking a deep breath, I try to blink back my emotions with no luck, but at least I manage to get the words out without stuttering.
“I . . . Thank you for everything you’ve done for me, but I think .
. . you and I need to have some distance for a bit before we can forge any kind of healthy relationship. ”
Finally, she sets the folded lumpia down and crosses her arms. Her eyes lift to Leo’s before falling back to mine, and she looks down her nose at me. “We’ll see.”
My lips part as she stares me down, daring me to—I don’t know what. “Is that it?” It’s my turn to ask.
She resumes her task, effectively dismissing me. “Yes, we’ll see if we want an ungrateful daughter again.”
The blow lands in the center of my chest.
I tug Leo back the moment he starts to pipe up. “Okay,” I tell her, shaking and trying not to cry. “I do hope that one day you can be happy and find it in you to love yourself.” Her face reddens and her eyes change, the way they do before she attacks, then calls herself a victim. “Goodbye, Mom.”
It’s hard not to run out of the house. Harder not to turn back around to see if she’ll fight for me or just fight me. But she lets me go like I never meant anything to her—like I’m inconsequential.
Leo rushes ahead of me to get my door, and I’m too numb to notice it shutting behind me, or that muscle memory has kicked in, and I’ve put on the seatbelt. I don’t notice the pickup turn on, or the street fly past, or the words Leo is saying.
Nothing makes it through until one thought hits me: it’s over.
It’s finally over.
The dam opens. The tears fall freely. I cry for my mom and the life she’ll never have. I cry because of the grief of losing a mother. I cry for a childhood I never got to experience, and moments of love and support I never had. I cry over years of pain endured for nothing.
I cry even when Leo parks and pulls me onto his lap. His hand moves in circles over my back as he whispers words of comfort: how he’s proud of me, how strong I am, how worth it this will all be, how he has me, he’ll never let go, how it’s safe.
I cry until the tears feel a little bit like joy. The pain has come to an end. I don’t need to keep hurting. It’s over. I’m free.