Chapter 50 #3
“Do you have eighty grand lying around somewhere that I don’t know about? Of course we tried to buy them, but coupled with the celebrity cheating scandal potential the photos have, they’re charging just under a hundred thousand for them. Lauren, it’s over. I hope you realize what you’ve done!”
“What about the campaign funds?”
Millions of dollars had been donated to my fathers campaign. I couldn’t see why he didn’t just—
Dad’s fist slammed into the wood of his desk, sounding off like indoor thunder. “Spend donor money for this? My constituents would eat me alive if word ever got out that I used their money so that my whore of a daughter could sneak around with thugs in the dead of night unchecked!”
My lower lip began to tremble, and I had to bite into it to keep myself composed. He was so angry. So… hateful. Sometimes I couldn’t be sure that my father didn’t absolutely despise me. It just felt like I was always doing something to make him unhappy.
Last year, after he’d kicked me out, Morgan would go on to tell me that, that summer Dad wouldn’t even stay in the same room as a person who wanted to talk about me.
Mom wanted me home, but Dad was content to never see me again.
That is, until I got shot. Morgan would go on to tell me that my shooting made Dad soften up a little.
She said it was clear he felt guilty about it, like he was taking partial responsibility for what had happened.
I lied awake at night wondering if my father let me come home because he loved me, or if it was because he felt sorry for me.
Mom tried to be a little more forthcoming, her behavior towards me the same as it had always been.
She didn’t treat me any differently for what I’d done.
However, she didn’t stand up for me either.
It never used to cross my mind when I was a Daddy’s Girl, but this past year had really showed me that my mother walked on eggshells with my father.
When it came to my mother, I realized that she would never do anything that would start a fight.
It was a realization that made me feel powerless, like no one in the world was in my corner.
She let my father kick me out of a house they shared, and in order to keep him content, she didn’t even look for me.
I used to think my parents had a good marriage.
When I finally opened my eyes, I realized that this was not the case.
My parents didn’t have a good marriage; my father merely had a very submissive wife.
And he wanted to mold his daughters into that submission as well.
“Daddy, I’m so sorry.” I sounded like I was pleading. And maybe I was pleading—apologizing as if to say, Daddy please don’t hate me.
“Rashad’s been calling the house all day, and been saying you won’t pick up his calls.
” My father shook his head, his eyes cutting into me as if I were disgusting.
“So that’s what you do? You mess around on a good young man for the love of some criminal.
Did you sleep with him last night? Is that where you’ve been all day—in his bed? ”
“Daddy, I lost my ph—”
“It’s a simple yes or no question, Lauren. I don’t wanna hear any more apologies and excuses. If you can play like you grown, then be grown. Quit your whining, and answer my question. Did you… fuck… that thug… last night?”
“I didn’t.” There was nothing I could do to stop the single tear that ran down my cheek. Instead, I rushed to wipe it away, all too eager to act like it never existed. “I really didn’t. I was with Lux last night. I didn’t do anything.”
“You liar!” More fist punching into his desk, cracking like manmade thunder.
Every time he hit his desk, I wondered if some small part of him wished it was me he was hitting.
“It wasn’t enough that you humiliated me last year, running around with that degenerate, getting yourself knocked up with his spawn.
You don’t know how to control yourself. You must like the fact that any self-respecting person within a fifty mile radius sees you as a run-through whore.
You’re trying to drag this family’s name down to your level. ”
I crumbled, my hands going to my ears, blocking out even the sounds of my cries begging him to stop.
I could hear myself apologizing over and over and over, my voice growing more unstable with each apology I uttered.
Even though, I’d done nothing wrong, I felt guilty.
I had to fix this. “What… wh-what do you… w-want me to… do?”
If my father told me I would make his life easier by drowning in the ocean, in that moment, I would’ve started making my way to the beach.
I hadn’t really done anything the night before, but the vitriolic hatred in his rant made me apologize for things I knew I didn’t do.
Anything to make him stop yelling at me.
“I just want you to stop, Lauren,” Dad replied, his volume finally coming down, yet completely unfazed by the fact that I was falling to pieces before his eyes. “Stop disappointing me.”