Chapter 21 #2
“Yes, well.” She cuts a sneer past me, toward Lukas. “I know when we aren’t welcome. We’ll stay the night only because it’s too cruel to make us drive so much in one day, but after we rest, we’ll be leaving first thing unless someone makes us feel more welcome.”
Does that mean I only have tonight to say whatever it is I want to say to my family?
My breaths shorten as my heart struggles.
“These rolls are delicious. What brand do the rich and arrogant buy? Can mere peasants afford it?” Mom challenges Lukas directly as he heaps food onto both our plates, starting with mine.
“You can’t,” he says, selecting a cut of meat for me. “Clara made them, and she makes what I want when I want for who I want.”
Disgust taints Mom’s expression, and so she shifts directions.
“Gracious, honey. Are you really going to eat all that? No wonder you’re gaining weight.
How dreadful. Lukas doesn’t care about your health.
He must like ‘thick’ women.” Refinement saturates her disdain.
“That was your father, before I converted him. Men are so depraved until women teach them manners.”
She’s goading. For a reaction. For Lukas to snap so she can say, Look at the monster! Come home with me where it’s safe.
I’m her only leverage here. She wants to use me to control him.
She knew within three seconds that Lukas would not change his feelings about her, no matter how much disapproval she threw at him. So now all she can do is make me want to go home, get him to fight for me, then use that to get whatever terms and conditions she wants met.
Of course she’s not planning to actually spend the night.
Dad drives.
Why would she care if it’s long and tiring?
She’s not doing it…and the only person my mother cares about is herself.
She intends to coerce benefits out of Lukas as the price to pay for me, or she intends to bring her servant and secondary income back home.
She’s had me pay rent since my junior year of high school, when I got a part-time job, and that rent has always been nearly my entire paycheck, rising when I switched from part to full after graduation.
It only occurs to me right now that it was probably a ploy—to keep me from being able to afford leaving.
She knows I’m careful. She made me so careful.
I wouldn’t dream of trying to move out without a cushion of savings.
So she took that freedom away the minute she could make it seem reasonable.
You’re old enough to pay.
Inflation, I’m sure you understand.
I wonder if she planned to use me like she has from the first moment she held me in her arms as a baby. I wonder… But wondering about these sorts of things isn’t really productive, is it?
“We’ve missed having you at home so much, baby,” she’s saying when my mind clears enough to realize I have been staring down at my plate and not listening to anything. “I can’t wait for you to come home and leave this big mistake behind.”
The big mistake you pushed me toward? Hollow, I ask, “Why?”
“Excuse me?” She saws into her slice of steak.
Her favorite. If she’s even bothered to notice that I’ve made everyone’s favorite is anyone’s guess.
She probably only recognizes her own, and maybe it’s made her smug.
Maybe she thinks it means I’m still susceptible to her because I still care about her. “What do you mean why?”
I don’t lift my head. “Why can’t you wait for me to come home? Are the dishes piling up?”
Her mouth drops. “Clara, how dare you speak to me like that. I miss you! We all miss you.”
I bet the floors haven’t been swept or mopped for a month.
I bet she’s been making Dad work overtime to cover the money I’m not bringing in.
I bet she’s complained in every moment to her star child Brent while he ignores her to play his video games because he was never the one who listened to or comforted her in her tirades.
That was always my role.
I’ve been her comfort, her mortgage, her live-in maid.
“If everyone misses me,” I whisper, tempering the thunder and pressure of my heart pulling blood through my veins, “why hasn’t Brent said a word to me?”
“Because he’s your stupid brother.” Mom flails a hand toward him while he stuffs his face with macaroni. “Brothers are like that.”
“My brothers aren’t like that.” They leave me little thank-you notes. They look out for me. They say we’ll stand by you, and then they do.
Never once has Brent treated me like a sister.
I’ve been his key to the easy life, the reason Mom never got on him about getting a job, the reason he doesn’t need to clean up after himself.
I’m…not panicking anymore.
I’m livid.
How could people who call me family treat me like dirt? How could complete strangers do better than them without a single reason to?
“What are you talking about?” Mom says, aghast. “You’re not acting like my little girl. What has being here with these monsters done to you?”
Given me something like a sense of self worth.
“Mom, do you love me?” I ask.
“What are you talking about?” she repeats, driving home her usual tactic of making me believe I’m the crazy one.
“Of course I love you.” Her voice pitches, grating against the grain of my very soul.
“I held you nine months inside my body. People don’t know what love is until they hold their own child in their arms.”
“If you love me, why do you treat me so poorly?” A lump settles and sticks in my throat.
“Poorly! What haven’t I done for you, Clara?
I have given you everything. Everything I could.
Everything I didn’t have.” She scoffs, outraged.
“What? Has being in this big fancy house made you think that you’re better than us?
That I could have given you more? We didn’t have more. I’ve given you everything.”
“You’ve taken more than you’ve ever given. I’ve been cleaning for you since I could hold a sponge.”
“This is about chores!?” She drops her silverware. “I’ve never heard something more ridiculous. You live under my roof; you help out. That’s standard, in every household.”
“Brent has never had to help out.”
“Oh, and now this is about your brother?”
“This is about everything,” I croak. Tears pour down my face.
“This is about never being good enough for you, no matter what I do. This is about using my free labor at every available opportunity. This is about not setting me up for success. This is about confiding in me whenever anything is bothering you and expecting me to sing your praises so you feel better when—in the moments I needed comfort—all I got was it’s not that bad, so many have it worse, get over it.
This is about silencing me. This is about using me.
This is about making every conversation about you. ”
Silence.
Silence broken only by my oblivious brother still rambling about video games while stuffing his face.
Mom takes a breath. Mom lets it out. “Well, I guess I was just a horrible mother then.”
My entire body snaps, because I’ve heard that one before—countless times—and I have spent hours of my life lying to make her feel like she wasn’t.
Now? Now, I’m done. I find the strength to face her.
“We’re talking about me now. Enough about you.
” Air burns in my chest. “You don’t appreciate me.
You don’t treat me with love. So now, I’m on the cusp of being done.
But I’m giving you one last chance. Are you going to make excuses?
Or are you going to take accountability?
That’s the only reason you’re here, Mom. I need to hear your answer.”
Balking, Mom grips her fist. “You get in one relationship, and suddenly you know what love is?” Her attention shifts to Lukas. “What words are you making her say? Give me back my baby.”
I move to cut off her line of sight to him. Because—again—we are talking to me. “I’m not yours anymore. You lost the privilege of me.”
Anger explodes, and then my mother’s hand lifts.
White hot pain careens across my cheek.
Furious words scream from her chest. “I raised you better than this! Don’t you dare talk to me like that! Who do you think you are? You’re selfish! You’re ungrateful!”
All around the table, chairs skid as my brothers stand, a semicircle of threat.
Lukas’s bulk folds over my entire body and my chair falls as he rips me out of it, placing me on unsteady feet behind him. I teeter, feeling the burn across my face. Kaleb catches me in his arms. Soothing words I can barely make out tumble from his lips.
Lukas grabs my mother’s hand, and hisses, “Apologize.”
“Let go of me!”
“Mom?” Brent asks, finally dragging himself out of his own self-absorption. “Is this when I’m supposed to start recording?”
“Already am,” Crimson says—voice venom. “Don’t worry, manchild. I caught the part where your mom hit our sister loud and clear.”
“Stupid, stupid boy!” Mom yells. “Gregory! Gregory, don’t just sit there chewing your cud like a cow! Help me.”
Dad starts to rise, but Viktor’s hand on his shoulder keeps him solidly down.
“Apologize,” Lukas says again.
“Who’s going to apologize to me for how disrespectful you’ve taught my little girl to be?”
“I believe my girl told you.” Lukas glowers. “This is not about you.”
“So I’m just not supposed to have feelings? I’m supposed to just take this abuse?”
“If you only have feelings when they overshadow your daughter’s, you do not have a right to them until it is your turn. Right now, you’re taking accountability and apologizing for the pain you’ve caused. That’s your job as a parent.”
“My job as a parent is to tiptoe around my children so I don’t hurt their feelings? Life isn’t like that. She needs to be less sensitive and learn her place. Parents should be respected.”
“Respect is not breaking your arm in response to you hitting her.” Lukas hisses, and Mom’s face contorts as Lukas applies pressure.
“Respect is not supplication. Respect is not worship. Respect doesn’t mean holding everything in until it destroys you.
Respect is talking to someone when you’ve been hurt, because you trust them to hear you.
If being worshipped means more to you than a relationship with your daughter, we are done here, and you can get out of our house. ”
“You don’t have the right to tell me what to do,” Mom spits, yanking on her arm. “Come on, Clara. We’re done. We’re going home. Brent, get our things.”
Nobody moves.
Brent whines, “I don’t want to go home yet. We’ve barely been here. I want to see what games Frost has.” Brent brightens. “Can I be in a video?”
“Are you still recording, Crimson?” Kyran drawls.
“Yup.”
“Congratulations, kid. You’re in a video.”
Brent scowls. “One of the videos on your channel.”
“Can you stop recording, Crimson?” Morana asks sweetly. “I’m gonna stab this guy with my fork, and I don’t want it on record.”
Daintily, Crimson puts her phone away.
“You’re all sick and twisted!” Mom hollers. “Clara, do something. Somebody, do something.”
What gets done is that my brothers escort my old family out, tossing their luggage after them.
“He’ll get bored of you!” Mom slurs before the door can close. “Once he’s done with your—” She swears about my chest. “—you’ll be coming crying back to me, you ungrateful—”
Lukas slams the door on her, and silence plagues the dim foyer. My heart rattles in my ears, and my hand remains cool against my burning face. Tears, sticky and warm, continue down my cheeks.
Static fills the holes in my skull.
“I’m…sorry,” I whisper before a crash makes me flinch.
Crimson moves, lightning fast, and catches a rock soaring through the front window beside the door before it hits Crisis.
Swearing, she drops the stone into the glass shards and frames Crisis’s cheeks, blocking her body from the outside.
Worry consumes her—love consumes her. “Dearness…are you all right?”
“Totally.” Crisis tugs on Viktor’s shirt. “The cameras outside probably caught that, huh?”
“Yep,” Viktor states, also protecting Crisis from the possibility of the outdoors coming to hurt her.
Wicked, Crisis grits, “And we’re pressing charges, right?”
My eldest brother’s eyes find me, settle, linger gently. “That’s up to Clara.”
My heart thuds, and I sway, unsteady near the broken glass.
“No,” Lukas says, sweeping me off my bare feet and moving me from the busted window.
“That’s up to me. I want restraining orders against all of them.
I want confirmation that they leave town in less than an hour.
I want them put on our blacklist. They do not touch anything beneath the Bachelor umbrella ever again. I want their names to be mud.”
“On it,” Viktor says.
“I’ll make the Canva Whiteboard,” Crisis notes. “Murderboard style.”
“I love your murderboards,” Viktor murmurs.
“Kyran, help me clean up this glass before someone gets hurt.” Morana plants her hands on her hips, locates Kyran, and rolls her eyes. “What are you doing?”
Kyran, holding Brent’s confiscated and forgotten Switch, says, “Judging.”
“Well, stop that? And get a broom.”
“Right away, mistress.”
Their voices drift, growing fainter with every stride Lukas takes toward the back staircase that leads up to the third story and our rooms.
Every step echoes in my chest.
I close my eyes.
My body remembers my mother’s hug; my mind replays her words.
My cheek stings.
I press my face against Lukas’s phoenix tattoo and dwell on the meaning behind a firebird.
From the ashes, we are reborn.
I will never subdue my voice again, and I will never let someone who responds to it the way my mother has into my life ever, ever again.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean this will stop hurting any time soon.