Chapter 25 #2
Mom met me halfway, standing in front of the school’s bulletin board. “Before I say anything,” she began, voice eerily calm. Calmer than her expression hinted at. “Are you okay?”
I looked down at my ankle, the vise around my throat tightening. I nodded.
“In that case, it seems as though you have had an eventful morning. Or, should I say, eventful past few weeks?”
Panic fluttered like a caged bird in my chest, thrashing against my ribs uncomfortably, stirring nausea. I never fully thought this moment through—the idea of Mom finding out about anything that’d happened over these past few weeks was scary, but I never knew how truly terrifying it was.
This was my house of cards, exploding into the air.
“Can you give us a moment?” Mom asked Rosie, not even sparing her a glance. I nearly reached out and grabbed Rosie’s wrist, refusing to let her leave us, but I couldn’t move. Rosie only hesitated a second before she turned around, her footsteps a quiet retreat. “Care to tell me anything, Gemma?”
I hated the question, because it left me to guess what she was the most upset about, left me to guess what she knew exactly. Was she talking about the buddy program? About the knife? About Hudson in general? My voice came out in a broken whisper to her heels. “Please don’t be mad at me.”
“Don’t be mad?” Mom repeated, taking a step closer to me. “Don’t be mad, Gemma? Tell me how I should be feeling, finding out my daughter’s lied to me about everything she’s been doing since school has started?”
I sucked in a short, trembling breath, blinking to try and clear my hazy vision. My brain felt like it was shutting down, cowering away from the confrontation, and I could do nothing but stand still.
“I specifically remember you telling me that your buddy was a girl. A girl that you went to the movies with.” Her voice dipped into a hiss. “Did Morgan even go with you that day?”
The breath I let out shook, doing nothing to alleviate the ache in my chest. “No.”
She scoffed, glancing around the hall as if she wanted to convene with someone about how insane her daughter was. “Why on earth would you let Talia talk you into this, Gemma? What made you not tell me? Why on earth did you think that was even a remotely good idea?”
Please, I thought, and I wasn’t sure why I thought it, but it was a word that blazed its way across my mind. Please, please, please, please. “Please don’t be mad.”
Mom got fed up with me staring at her shoes, because suddenly her fingers were underneath my chin, lifting my head up.
My vision swam. “I can’t even understand you,” she said, the exasperation in her tone clear.
“I’ve never been more disappointed in my life.
And I know your father will be disappointed too when we tell him.
We raised you better than this, didn’t we? I raised you better!”
She slapped the disappointment card down with no mercy. I hated how much it made me shrink into myself, cold darkness pooling around me. I was once more in the cardboard box, but this time, I wasn’t banging on the sides. I cowered in the corner, hoping the shadows could hide me, swallow me whole.
When I was little, I learned what it meant to be a Settler.
We were a founding family, one of the most popular families of Brentwood.
We had an image to maintain. The Settlers, the Dyers, the Oliphants, the Brays—we were the families that people in town knew.
People would call Mom and invite her to their parties, or people would call Dad and invite him for a barbeque.
Landon was picked first on all the teams, and even landed quarterback.
My entire life, we’d been in the spotlight. We were meant to keep our heads down, to be above reproach. And I’d been perfectly okay with it all, never thinking twice.
Until I wasn’t. Until I woke up.
Never in my life had I so desperately wished I’d still been asleep.
“Please don’t be mad at me,” I repeated, drawing my lower lip between my teeth and biting down, trying hard to stifle the increasing pressure in my chest. Please, please, please.
“Do you know what people will say about you if word gets out? Sneaking around with—with—Gemma. What were you thinking?”
I thought I’d be able to handle the consequences of my parents finding out.
I thought I’d be able to handle whatever they threw at me, and that I’d be a whole new person who didn’t care what her parents thought.
I thought I’d found my footing in the new me, but the truth was that I’d only been playing a new kind of role, and the curtains were pulling to a close.
Mom being upset over this hurt more than I thought it would.
I knew it would sting, but it did more than just that—it crippled me, to the point that I just wanted to fall at her feet and beg for her forgiveness.
I didn’t want her to think less of me, to be disappointed with me.
In that moment, all I wanted to do was go back in time, to never do anything that would risk her getting angry in the first place.
Did you fight against it, or did you just give in to it? I’d asked Hudson that first day on the bridge.
And Hudson had tipped his head down, a smile on his face. Is there a point to fighting it if nothing will change?
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I whispered, something desperate holding my lungs hostage, refusing to let me draw in a deep breath.
The throbbing in my ankle was definitely getting worse, but even worse was the pain splintering in my chest, spiraling me into an ocean of misery.
All the years of following my mantra and doing what I was told had me not knowing how bad disobeying made me feel.
I never knew how heavy Mom’s disappointment really was.
In the midst of finding myself, I felt worthless in a matter of seconds.
Grow a backbone. The words were a faint whisper in my head, drowned out by the voices that screamed of defeat.
And, like before, I yielded. I forgot Hudson was in the office, still in the mess I was the one to throw him in. I forgot about the knife, forgot about the buddy program, and forgot everything. I backed down. Gave in to her. Gave up entirely.
“I’m really, really sorry,” I murmured again, and the sob that’d been building and building finally burst free, and once I started to cry, it was a long time before I stopped.