Letter Two #4
I stepped close, snatched the cigarette from your fingers, and took a drag.
I liked the way you studied me as I drew the nicotine into my lungs and expertly held it there for a few seconds before freeing the smoke from my mouth.
You plucked the cigarette from my lips, and sparks went off.
Bright. Hot. Crackling in my chest. It felt like you’d touched me, even though you hadn’t.
Chin tilted, you asked, “What would your dad do if he caught you out here smoking?”
“He would get mad and send me to my room. Probably ground me.” And I could’ve left it there, but I wanted to test you. Wanted to feel you out. Wanted to tell you something private about myself and see how you reacted to it. “Then he’d take me back to therapy.”
“Therapy,” you repeated. “Bit…extreme for smoking, isn’t it?”
“You would think so. But that’s what he does when I do something bad. If he caught me out here smoking, he’d know for sure that I lied.”
“Lied about what?”
“The nanny.”
Your eyes narrowed in confusion, so I explained.
“A few weeks ago, he had to fire my last nanny, because he kept finding cigarette butts out here on the ground, and she swore it wasn’t her, even though they were the same brand she smokes.
You see, one of my dad’s top rules for any nanny who’s ever worked for him is that she doesn’t smoke on the job, doesn’t smoke anywhere near this house.
My dad hates cigarettes. Like, really hates them.
As in, if he finds one on this property, he loses his shit.
And this nanny swore she’d never broken my dad’s rule.
She claimed I was the one leaving the butts behind. ”
You pulled the cigarette from your lips, a ribbon of smoke curling into the night air. “And it was you.”
“It was me,” I said with a smile. “For one whole month, I bummed cigarettes off one of the seniors at school who’d stolen them from her mom.
And for one whole month—even though I actually dislike the taste of cigarettes—I cracked open a window upstairs and smoked in the super creepy bedroom across the hall from my dad’s room while that nanny was downstairs embroidering cats onto pillows, and—”
“Why’s the bedroom so creepy?”
“What?”
“You said the super creepy bedroom across the hall from your dad’s. What’s so creepy about it?”
“I don’t know. It used to be my bedroom when I was little, but it creeps me out.
Whenever I walk in there, I feel like I’m suffocating or trapped or something.
I can’t explain it.” I shivered just thinking about that room.
“Anyway, I smoked in there—despite how freaked out I was—so I could drop the butts out the window and they’d land out here on the terrace, where he’d find them when he came home from work.
Plus, I wanted that room to reek of cigarettes when he eventually walked in there, and it definitely did, because he went into that room one day and totally lost it.
He confronted the woman, and she claimed it wasn’t her, but it kept happening.
And that’s when she blamed me, because everyone knew I didn’t want her here. ”
“So this went on a while, then,” you said. “If the rule was so important to him, why didn’t he fire her immediately?”
“Because I’ve chased off…several nannies over the years.
So my dad kept giving her the benefit of the doubt.
He even ransacked my room, searching for evidence I was the one lying and she was telling the truth.
But I was very careful. I hid those cigarettes in a spot he’d never find them, because I know how my dad operates, and when he didn’t find anything, he had no choice but to fire her. ”
You peered at me. “And you don’t feel bad about lying? About getting an innocent person fired?”
I plucked the cigarette from your fingers again and took another drag. “Nope.”
A lie. The very first one I ever told you.
“That can’t be true,” you said.
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, fine. I felt a little bad. But then she called me a psychopath under her breath as she was leaving, and I was glad to be rid of her then.” Glad to be rid of her, but not proud of how I’d accomplished it.
A deep groove appeared between your eyebrows as you gently took the cigarette back, and when our fingers brushed, I shivered from the contact. Even back then, I wondered if that brush had been intentional.
The way I know you now, I suspect it might’ve been your quiet way of saying you cared about my feelings.
“Aren’t you a bit too old for a nanny?” you asked.
“She only stayed with me for a few hours after school until my dad got home from work, but yes. I’m way too old for a nanny, and that’s what I keep trying to tell my dad. But he doesn’t like to leave me alone. He likes to keep me on a tight leash.”
“Why’s that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? He doesn’t trust me.”
You glanced up at the house. “Has it always been just you and your dad?”
“Yep. My mom left right after my first birthday.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” you said, wearing an expression so genuine it squeezed my heart.
“Don’t be. It’s her loss, not mine.”
“Is that how you actually feel? Or is that just the thing you say to keep people from feeling sorry for you?”
The questions unnerved me, Casey. We might’ve just met, but you’d already spotted something in me I’d been hiding my whole life.
“The woman who gave birth to me was a coldhearted bitch, and I’m better off without her.
It’s her loss, not mine,” I told you, but that was a lie, too.
Not having a mom bothered me. Seeing other girls with their moms bothered me.
Having no one to celebrate on Mother’s Day deeply fucking bothered me.
And you noticed, your gaze full of sympathy as it swept over my face. I didn’t like how you kept doing that. How you kept trying to work the truth loose when I wanted you to believe the lie.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked.
“Sure.” Your soft response made me feel bad for what I was about to do.
“What’s going on between you and Michael’s girlfriend?”
The change of topic caught you off guard. You hesitated before answering. “What do you mean?”
“She was all over you in there,” I pointed out, lifting my eyebrows.
“Sienna and I are friends.”
“You might want to tell her that.”
“Believe me,” you said firmly, “she knows.”
“I hope so,” I said, “because if you hurt Michael, I’ll castrate you.”
You paused with the cigarette halfway to your mouth. “Excuse me?”
I looked you dead in the eye. “You heard what I said.”
“Are you fucking with me?”
I snatched the cigarette from your fingers. “I’ll hunt you down if you hurt Michael for any reason, but if you hurt him with that bitch? I’ll chop your balls off.”