32. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
I slam my bedroom door and hear Jesse’s close a few seconds later. I feel so alone. So uncomfortably numb when I’m not around him. It makes me nervous. But I know I need to do this on my own.
During my break, I must have composed fifteen different texts to my mother, deleting them all. Reading what I have to say is too good for her. I need to make her listen. I can’t have any doubts in my mind that the message wasn’t clear enough. Her chicken shit ass needs to hear the awful truth so I can have the pleasure of hanging up on her when I’m done.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I lean against the back of my door. There’s a hairline crack down the left side of the screen from where I threw it across reception, but that’s a small price to pay.
Imagining Jesse sitting at his door gives me the strength I need to tap the ‘call’ button.
Rumbling nausea percolates the instant I hear the first ringtone.
It sounds again, and the feeling rises to my chest.
She still doesn’t pick up.
A third round of chimes has me questioning the entire exercise.
A fourth and I’m convinced she’s ignoring the call on purpose.
Five…
Six…
Then, finally, as the seventh set of tones begins and I pull my phone away to hang up, my mother's meek, insipid voice punches my ear like a freight train, and I’m ready to fight.
“Hello, Kai.”
“How’s Blakely?” I ask about my sister before she has time to say anything else.
“Um, she’s fine.” She replies, clearly taken aback by my tone. “She’s halfway through her senior year, and a little more distant than I’d like. She’s been spending a lot of time in the shed, but it’s far too cold out there at this time of ye—”
“You didn’t give a fuck about the weather when I was sleeping out there.”
“Please, I don’t want to fight with you… I’m surprised you called, but it’s good to hear your voice.”
“And I’m surprised you think I’d actually wanna come home.”
She sighs, and I know exactly what her face looks like. Disappointment. In me. “It’s a very important occasion.”
“More important than how I’ve been the last seven years?”
“I’ve known where you are.”
“Really? Do you know where I’m working—no, that’s probably too hard. What province am I living in?”
“Kai,” she whispers out my name because she doesn’t want my father to know who she’s talking to. “I said I don’t want to fight with you, sweetheart.”
“Sweetheart?” I scoff, then genuinely laugh at her choice of words. “That’s the most motherly thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, of course, how stupid of me. You suggested Dad just throw me out of the house instead of breaking my neck. I’m sorry I never sent you a thank you card.”
“This isn’t why I reached out—”
“No. You contacted me because you thought the person who hates me the most in the world would want to see me for his birthday. Or was it your maternal guilt? Nah, it’s none of those… You have him on such a high fucking pedestal, you believe it’s my duty to come home and bow at his feet with you just for being brought into the world.”
“Kai—”
“Fuck you, Mom… Fuck you.” I punch the words out. “I’ve never had a father. But I need you to hear that I’ve never had a mother, either. You mean less than nothing to me. And… I think I hate you more than I hate him.”
“Don’t say that.” They’re the right words, but there’s still no emotion behind them.
“Why not? I’ve always felt this way. And you never cared enough to even offer me a blanket when I moved into that fucking shed.”
“I knew you were safe.”
“Safe? I almost froze that first winter. If it hadn’t been for Millie and—”
“That whore was the root of your problems.”
“That whore? Hate to break it to ya, Mum, but I was the whore. I should have been charging for it for how popular I was… And just so you know, I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Millie and the other girls. They’re the ones who took me to the hospital after they found me passed out on the back steps where you and Dad left me. I wasn’t your sweetheart then. Not when I was covered in blood and cum from being raped! You knew what happened, and you did nothing. Nothing!”
“I’m sorry—”
“Keep your empty words. You didn’t care then and you still don’t care now. So this will be the last you ever hear from me. If I find out along the grapevine that you died, I won’t mourn for you. And if it’s Dad? I might throw a fucking party. But if I ever hear that either of you laid a hand on Blakely, I’ll come and kill you myself. And please, be sure to let Dad know he was right about me all along. I am a fag, and I fucking love cock.”
Hanging up before she can say anything else, I stride to my desk and rummage through the drawer full of junk until I find the safety pin off an old clothing tag. Opening the sim tray, I pull out the nano card and use a pair of nail clippers to cut it in half.
Throwing it in the trash, I spit on it and go rigid. I’m frozen in place until the adrenaline speeding through my veins backs off and I slowly return to earth from my whirling high.
I’ve done it.
I’ve finally, officially, cut my ties.
God, it feels amazing!
God, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this free.
Diving back into the drawer, my hand lands on something I made a long time ago. Back when it was just me and Cleo. Back when I thought maybe she deserved it.
Flinging open my door, I’m at Jesse’s in less than a second—knocking like Greeks at Troy. But my gift is way more enticing than some stupid wooden horse…
“Fuck. That’s a nice welcome.”