Chapter 13 Taylor #2
This is how it goes between us. I let her walk over me because, in her mind, I did the unforgivable: I stole her life, her childhood, her mother.
I didn’t have my own anymore, so I took it all from her.
She doesn’t care that I would have done anything to stay with mine, that I didn’t want any of this.
I was only seven; it wasn’t my choice. But it wasn’t hers either, to get a big sister practically overnight.
Cassie felt the constant need to remind me that she was the real daughter.
That it was her mother and her house and her toys and her clothes.
How could I have forgotten? They were always too small for me.
“You got the perfect Paris honeymoon,” I say, infusing my voice with envy. It’s not hard.
It was about eight years ago, on my twenty-first birthday.
My mother had been dead for years, but I’d never let go of the idea that I could find my father.
My possibly French father. All I dreamed about was a trip to Paris.
I’d been talking about it for so long and Rae surprised me, surprised all of us.
She’d saved up some money and the three of us were going on a vacation to France! How amazing was that?
It was not. Cassie threw one of the biggest fits I’d ever witnessed.
Why would I—the burden—get anything I wanted?
Rae had already applied for our passports.
She’d found a good deal on flights and a cheap little hotel.
We were going. Except that the day before we were supposed to leave, Cassie disappeared.
Rae and I canvassed the whole town, drove around for hours, worried sick.
Cassie came back two days later. She took one look at our suitcases, still packed and ready in the entrance, and smiled a big wicked smile.
Rae lost all the money she’d spent on the bookings, and we never discussed it again.
That summer I worked harder than ever—early mornings cleaning rooms at a local motel on top of the inn’s, afternoons at the local bakery—and bought myself a car.
A piece of freedom. I jammed my brand-new passport deep inside the glove box, the only space that was truly mine.
Of course, as soon as I got the car, Cassie demanded I drive her everywhere—to her friends’, to Darren’s.
She could have used her mother’s car, of course, but she never liked driving.
I should have used the money to go to Paris on my own, but by then I was much more focused on escaping her grasp, and not just for a few days.
“It’s so beautiful here. Much better in real life,” Cassie says.
I’m two streets away now. Suddenly, Olivier walks past me, looking dejected and furious at the same time, his hands deep inside his pockets, his gaze down.
Does he know I stole the money he stashed away at home?
Does he realize that I see him for who he is: a liar and a cheat?
I lower my head, grateful I wore my hat again, that I had the wherewithal to change my appearance before going after them. He doesn’t even glance up anyway.
“So what are you two doing now?” I say.
Cassie doesn’t miss a beat. “Oh, we’re just about to head to this rooftop for lunch. Olivier managed to get us in at this superexclusive place. He knows everyone in Paris. It really makes the trip much more special.”
My mouth goes dry. “You’re on your way there now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The two of you?”
Cassie sighs. I don’t usually push her that much.
Growing up in our house, her house, I quickly learned to be the quiet one.
The easy one. Rae was my mother’s only living relative—a cousin a few times removed.
Child Protective Services managed to track her down and told her that I’d been through three foster families in over a year and that a more stable situation with a relative would be preferable.
Rae had agreed and taken me in out of the kindness of her heart.
At least that’s what I thought. Cassie was just six years old, but she despised me from the moment I stepped through that door.
Later, she’d blame me for the fact that her father never came back for her.
It makes little sense now, but back then I believed it.
I believed everything. My presence had threatened the balance of this already fragile family, and I could be kicked out just as quickly as I was brought in.
So I did as I was told. I studied and got good grades.
I helped around the house after school. From age ten, I made the rooms for the few guests we had, and by twelve I was preparing breakfast for everyone.
I needed to pay my dues. Cassie only hated me more; my good-girl behavior made her look even worse.
“Yes, Taylor, the two of us. I’m on my honeymoon, remember? The whole point is to have a good time with my husband. This is what people in relationships do. Though of course you wouldn’t know.”
“You’re right; I’m sorry.”
The words come out of habit. Still, I crumble on the inside. How do I let her do this to me over and over? She lays down traps and I get caught. I bought it all: every perfectly framed Instagram picture, every video in which she quipped about how much love was in the air. Fucking bitch.
“I gotta go,” Cassie says.
I’m overcome with so much rage that I want to hang up on the spot. Then I remember there’s something else I need to ask her. It might sound suspicious, but I don’t care anymore. “Wait. A man came by the house. He had the keys. Do you know what that’s about?”
She lets out a deep sigh. “He told me you weren’t there.”
“Why does a random man have the key to our house, Cassie?”
She’s silent for such a long while that I almost give up. Cassie won’t be honest with me anyway; she never is. “He’s a Realtor. And he doesn’t have the keys. I told him where we hide the spare set, since he said there was nobody home.”
“Why do you need a Realtor? I thought you and Olivier were renovating the house?”
“We were. We are. I don’t know. I’m thinking I might sell it instead.”
“You can’t do that!” My voice comes out like a squeal.
It’s not that I like it that much, not like I haven’t thought a hundred times that I needed to leave.
To get away. For good. But something always stopped me.
A bad breakup. Rae’s terminal cancer diagnosis.
Trying so desperately to save money while Cassie always demanded I invest in one of her new ventures, like that candle-making business.
I knew it would fail, but as always, I chose the easier way out.
Saying no to her was so much worse. If I did, she was never out of ways to make my life harder.
“Of course I can.”
“No, Cassie. Even you can’t have everything you want.” I’ve never spoken so harshly to her, but I’m right. “Your mother adopted me. She left what she had to both of her daughters.”
It’s something we never speak about because I know how much it upsets Cassie.
Her mother loved me, too. Maybe not in the best way, but she did.
And I was a good daughter to her. I drove her to chemotherapy appointments, picked up her meds, made her smoothies—the only thing she could keep down.
Meanwhile, Cassie would just flail about, say this was too much to handle, and then head out to Darren’s, not to be seen for days.
“Oh sure,” Cassie says, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “My mother loved you. Her little extra daughter. The good one. So yes, she split everything evenly in her will. She didn’t give a crap about how that made me feel.”
“That’s not true.” I can’t help but comfort Cassie, to prop her up.
Because as hard as I tried to ignore it growing up, Rae and Cassie’s relationship was fraught with conflict.
Rae had wanted children, but not at the cost of having them alone.
She’d never recovered from her husband leaving, from how the family she’d dreamed of had imploded.
Call your father, Rae would say. Ask him if he wants to come for Christmas, your birthday, your graduation.
Find out about “her.” But Cassie never did.
In fact, she swore up and down she didn’t want him there.
She didn’t remember him and she certainly wasn’t going to beg for his attention, especially if that’s what her mother wanted.
Rae would read the cards Cassie occasionally got from him, searching for mentions of her.
You could see the pain on her face when she found none.
I think Cassie never responded to them because she knew her mother was desperate for that connection.
“Yeah, well, whatever, Taylor. It doesn’t matter because the house didn’t belong to Mom. It was my dad’s and he definitely didn’t put you in his will.”
I feel like all the air has been punched out of me. The house is dark and damp and in so much need of repair, but it’s also the only home I remember, the only place where I’ve felt safe. The one thing I thought was at least partly mine.
“Cassie…” I start, breathless.
She can’t do this to me, not after everything I’ve done for her.
Who pays the bills and buys the food and cleans the place?
She’s never kept a job more than a few months and hasn’t bothered trying to get one since her mom died a year ago.
Grief is convenient like that. That day she came back from the city with Olivier was one of the first times I ever stood my ground.
She texted me from the train, demanding I pick her up. It took everything I had to say no.
“No, I’m speaking,” she cuts in. “Here’s the deal, Taylor.
You’ve been mooching off my family for long enough.
The house belongs to me. ME! Which means that, right now, you’re living on my property.
That bed you sleep on? Mine. Those rooms you always complain about cleaning?
Mine. The driveway in which you park your shitty car?
It’s all mine. And I think it’s about time you get the hell out of there. ”