28. TWENTY EIGHT
TWENTY EIGHT
CORY
Garrett was at work a few days later when they went to my parents’ house with a warrant for my mother’s arrest. He wasn’t one of the officers actually there, but he texted me saying that it was happening. No doubt bending the rules by giving me the heads up, but that just made me appreciate it all the more.
I hadn’t heard from either my mother or my father, but I didn’t expect to. Knowing them, they were going to try to keep this as hush hush as possible. They didn’t exactly have neighbors, so they’d probably get away with it, too. Their whole social circle would be none the wiser until her court dates, whenever those took place.
In the end, my mother was in a jail cell for all of an hour before my father posted her bail. There were very few things I wouldn’t have done to have been able to see Annette Eastwood behind bars, but asking Garrett to send pictures seemed like pushing my luck.
The day after her release, Garrett and I were lying in bed, the early morning sun shining through the window and highlighting the stray strands of his dark hair, when I told him I was going to see my mother.
“Are you sure?”
I shrugged, but nodded. “I need to hear it from her, I think. For my own sake. I don’t expect her to be remorseful or anything, but I need to confront her. I’m sure as shit not visiting her in prison.”
“I’ll go with you.” He sat up and started searching for his pants.
I had to tear my eyes away from his back muscles or I’d never leave the bed.
“As much as I appreciate you wanting to support me in this, I need to do it alone. If you come, she probably won’t even open the door.”
“Okay.” He grabbed my hand in his, thumb rubbing gentle caresses along the back. “I love you, and I’m here if you need me.”
I sat up and dropped a kiss on his shoulder. “I love you too.”
It was shocking how easily those words left my lips those days, but it was true, and I was done fighting it.
I pulled on a bright red sweater and a pair of jeans, the fashionable holes having since ripped further. They would piss my mother off for sure.
“Would it be okay if I took Siren for a run while you’re gone?” Garrett asked, and both mine and Siren’s heads whipped to him like he’d just spoken another language.
I barked out a sarcastic laugh. “You are more than welcome to try Gar-Bear, but you’ll be lucky to make it to the end of the driveway with her.”
He grinned and scratched behind Siren’s ear. “Nah, we’ve got this. Don’t we, girl?”
She looked to me as if I was going to save her.
“You’re not tired after last night?” I shot Garrett a sultry look, the ache between my legs becoming more prominent, as if to prove my point.
“How do you think I got that stamina?” The wink he threw my way almost had me crawling back to him. Almost.
“Good luck with your run. Text me when she gives up.”
I kissed him goodbye and then pet Siren on the head. “Running will be good for you.”
Her head tilt said all I needed to know on how that adventure was going to go.
***
I knocked on the pristine white door and waited, looking around the property and trying to imagine cop cruisers parked all over the perfectly manicured lawn. The absolute fit my mother most likely threw over it even as she was being taken away in handcuffs.
When Annette opened the door, the amused smile was still on my face. I turned it down a couple of notches and tried my best to keep it from turning into a sneer.
“Cordelia. What are you doing here?” Her voice was off, and if I didn’t already know everything that had happened, I might’ve suspected something was wrong by that alone. She scanned the air behind me as if expecting to find a dozen officers waiting for her again.
Her gaze settled back on me, giving my outfit a once over. “Can you not afford to buy yourself clothing?”
I shrugged. “Money is a little tight at the moment, actually.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes going wide with intrigue. “So, you’ve come here to ask for our help? After that tantrum you threw at my party?”
The haughtiness of her tone made me want to say fuck it all and leave, but I knew I’d regret that once her poison faded from my system.
I cleared my throat. “Can I come in and speak with you?”
“Speak like a civilized human being, or yell some more?”
Breathe, Cory. Breathe.
“Mother,” I said through a clenched smile.
She said nothing as she turned on her heel and walked back into the house, leaving the door open for me to follow. Apparently that singular hour in the brink wiped her obsession with formalities out of her.
In the drawing room, my mother walked straight to her chair which sat beside my father’s where he was already sitting reading a newspaper.
“Our daughter is here,” she said.
They both stared at me through unwavering eyes as I sat on the loveseat across from them. I straightened my back, schooling my posture as it had been ingrained in me before I remembered I didn’t have to do that anymore because I didn’t care. Slouching back against the seat, the three of us sat in silence for a moment, but Annette never was good at not hearing herself talk for too long.
“Well? What do you have to say? We’re waiting.”
I faked offense. “What? We’re not going to catch up first?”
Another eye roll from my mother. “Sure, Cordelia. Let’s catch up.” She says the last two words like I personally made them up.
“Well, I don’t know if either of you heard, but my shop has been vandalized. It’s completely ruined.” I didn’t have to fake the anger in my tone because looking at my mother and watching her pretend like she didn’t try to destroy my dream had my blood simmering.
She and my father exchanged a shocked glance, my mother lifting a hand to her chest to really sell it.
If the academy was here to hand out awards, they would’ve earned one, but unfortunately for them, it was just me. And I was far more likely to hand out fists than awards.
“What a shame. Isn’t that right, Robert?”
“Yes, that’s terrible.”
“So, that means you’re looking for a new job then, yes?” Her voice was too high pitched, and it dripped with hope.
“I’m going to have to. It’s why I came over here, actually. I was wondering if you’d put me in contact with the dance companies you’d spoken to.”
This charade was only going to make everything hurt worse, but I had to see her reaction for myself.
And it didn’t disappoint.
Or rather, it did because her eyes sparkled and her mouth turned up in a genuine smile. It was a look I hadn’t seen in almost ten years. Pride.
I wished I could say that didn’t sting, but it did.
“Of course! I’d be happy to. I can help you call them if you’d like. I have to admit I’m surprised, but I’m glad you came to your senses.”
I nodded slowly, taking in her words. It was time to wrap this up because my heart could only take so much more, even though it knew the game we were playing when we walked inside.
“Thanks. Anyway, I also came over because I wanted to check in on you. Mrs. Beauchamp told Kinsley you weren’t at the meeting on Wednesday. Isn’t that the one you run? You’ve never missed a club meeting.”
It was only because I knew exactly where she was Wednesday that I picked up on the way she subtly shifted in her seat, nervously straightening her skirt.
“Yes, well, I recently picked up some other obligations. I merely forgot to reschedule the meeting with the girls. They’ll understand.”
I narrowed my eyes and pressed my lips together. “You picked up some things, or some things came to pick you up?”
And there it was. Right out in the open.
My words sat in between us all like a decaying animal.
Her eyes widened and her mouth popped open as if to say something, but she shut it again, and I raised an eyebrow at her .
“What? Nothing to say? Well, shit, that’s a first!” I laughed sarcastically and sat forward, placing my hands on my knees and leaning in. “Should I go first, then?”
“You’re still talking to that officer?” She sounded surprised, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d landed him, either, but a gifted horse and all that.
“Interesting place to start, but what the hell? Yeah, Mom, I’m still talking to that officer, but he’s not how I know you’ve been trying to sabotage my shop since it opened.”
She didn’t need to know that Garrett was the one who pieced it all together.
I let the hurt and anger show. “How could you?”
She sat straighter, arrogant nonchalance straightening her mouth and arching her eyebrows. “I told you. No daughter of mine will own a tattoo shop. You clearly weren’t going to make the responsible decision on your own, so I intervened. I was helping you, Cordeli—”
I couldn’t help the way my voice rose a few octaves as I shouted at her. “Helping? Helping me do what exactly, Mom? Go back to dance? All of this is still about me dancing? Why is that so goddamn important to you?”
She sat in her chair, stoically and mute.
I continued.
“You know, I stuck it out so much longer than I wanted to just to make you happy because it was the only time I felt like you loved me. But then I told myself that no, of course you’d still love me even if I didn’t do ballet anymore, but that wasn’t true was it? I was only ever a surrogate ballerina to fill the slippers that you didn’t get to. When I was no longer that, I was no longer anything, right? You know, for someone who knows exactly what not getting to pursue their dream feels like, you sure as hell had no problem trying to ruin mine.”
“I didn’t try. I did.” Her voice was cold and venomous.
“Annette—” My father started, more likely to caution her against saying anything more than she already did in relation to the crime, rather than to defend me.
“Shut up, Robert. She’s not going to say anything.”
I scoffed and stood. “Why? Because you’re my mother? No, I’m not saying anything because I don’t have to. They’ve got enough evidence on you without my help, but you can bet your ass that if they ask for it, I’ll gladly give them anything they need. You may have destroyed my shop, but that’s all you did. My drive, my determination, my passion? You couldn’t destroy those if you tried. So, congratulations! You set me back, but I’ll have a new shop open long before you get out of prison.”
Annette was seething under her thinly veiled exterior of indifference. I made my way to leave but stopped when I got to the threshold of the room.
“I’m filing restraining orders against both of you. I’ll see you both in court.”
Leaving my parents’ house felt weird because I knew with perfect certainty that it would be the last time I ever stepped foot in there, but I wasn’t sad. There weren’t any good memories to mourn. It wasn’t even a home. It was just a house.
No, home was a feeling. And for me, that feeling emanated from a person. A person who was currently trying to take my lazy pitbull for a run.