25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
My shift was such a blur today. All I could think about was getting back to my apartment and hiding in my room until morning. When I unlock the door and close it behind me, it slams. I freeze and think I hear Harriet shuffle around in another room. Maybe she didn’t hear me. I take out my phone, checking it for the third time in five minutes. No new messages. Not that I’m waiting for anyone to message me. Not any black-haired, annoying men, anyway. A frustrated breath leaves me.
When I hear a door close, I perk up to see Harriet make her way over to me.
“You’re getting home late,” she states, crossing her arms.
Her playing the part of a concerned parent was never something I enjoyed, and right now is no different. An uncomfortable burn starts in my chest, spreading as I sit with her faux concern for my well-being.
“Yup.” I hope that my disinterested tone is enough to convey how much I don’t want to get into a fight tonight. She’ll hopefully get the hint and drop whatever it is she wants to say to me.
I try to calm the burning sensation by touching my chest, but I find Alden’s necklace there instead. You’re safe. The words echo inside my mind, and I try to relax, but it isn’t working. If anything, I feel worse. Because it reminds me of Alden. Ignoring everything, I go to the kitchen and grab a bottle of water from the fridge.
My mind is in a daze as I reflect on what happened between Alden and me yesterday. It shouldn’t bother me as much as it does. I feel like I’ve fucked up everything and hurt us both. Why did I agree to go out with Braxton, knowing it would hurt Alden?
It was all getting so intense, and I just couldn’t handle it. So, I resorted to pulling the ripcord, like I always do when too many feelings are involved. But what if I made a mistake?
Harriet sits down at the island, her scrutinizing eyes on me as she tracks my every move.
“What?” I ask.
She raises her eyebrows, but she doesn’t seem jostled by my sour mood. “Nothing. I was just going to ask you about your night.”
“Yeah, sure. Because you care. What’s next? Brunch on the weekends?”
Harriet stiffens. “Why do you always assume I have the worst intentions?”
“Because you do!” I’m exasperated that I need to, yet again, have this conversation with her and explain how much it hurts to be around her. “But you can’t help it. It’s just who you are.”
“You’ve had a bad night, from what I can tell, so I’ll let that go.” She runs a hand through her hair. “But don’t forget who you’re talking to. I’m still your mother.”
Defeated, I sigh. “And when has that ever stopped you from doing whatever you wanted, regardless of whether I was in the picture?”
My chest rises and falls fast. I’m not sure where this newfound courage to tell Harriet off is coming from, but it couldn’t have come at a better time. Frustration at the people in my life is finally getting to me, and I don’t think I can hold it in anymore.
“I was only trying to talk to you, Monroe. I didn’t deserve that.” Harriet stands up, but my voice stops her.
“You know what I didn’t deserve?” I ask, pausing as her eyes find mine. “A mother who never failed to let me know just how unwanted I was. I didn’t deserve your sorry excuse for being a mother, and I didn’t deserve to be treated as if I was a burden rather than your daughter.”
I feel a stream of hot tears on my cheeks, and I wipe them away quickly.
Even now, years after I supposedly moved on from Harriet’s mistreatment and after telling myself that I don’t need or want her anywhere near my life, my heart still breaks a little when I look at her. She has a solemn expression on her face, and I want to trust that reaction. More than I want anything, I want to take it as a sign that she understands just how awful she always made me feel and how her neglect has shaped me, but I know she doesn’t.
I don’t know if it’s because she just doesn’t get it or because she can’t admit it. I never learn, it seems. Knowing all this, I still invited her back into my life and my home. She might appear different, but she’s still the same selfish, neglectful mother deep down.
Harriet is quiet for a long time. The obvious heaviness lingers between us. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, a sudden wave of anxiousness rocking through me. Is she upset? Is she going to yell at me? Why do I care how she reacts?
Finally, she speaks. “I tried my best.” Her voice is thick with emotion.
That’s it? I waited my whole life to hear her apologize, and that’s all she has to say to me? I’m overcome with rage. It isn’t good enough, nowhere near it.
“You should’ve tried harder.”
I know I need to calm myself down before I say something I’ll only regret, but Harriet is quick, not letting me go that easily.
“You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true. So stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m a monster.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “Once again, it’s all about you, Harriet,” I sniffle. “Have you ever thought that maybe you are a monster?”
She winces but continues, not hearing me. “Everything I did or didn’t do—that was on me. That’s my shit to carry. But honestly, Monroe, you were a lot to handle when you were a kid. I couldn’t do it sometimes.”
My heart feels like it just shattered into a million pieces, on display for everyone to see. It’s amazing how the people we love can both heal and hurt us with only a few words.
“I was a lot to handle? I was a child. I was your responsibility. You treated me like I was garbage all because it was too much?” My voice cracks on the last word, and it feels like I’ve been transported back in time.
My anger is palpable now, making Harriet shrink as she stands in front of me. I don’t want to hear any more. Her half-assed excuses are just that, excuses. I’m done taking whatever crumbs she’s willing to give me, all in the name of family. Because we aren’t family.
“Whatever choices you made, those are yours, so don’t you dare blame me for your shortcomings. You messed up. Whatever sort of apology you’re trying to give me to make yourself feel better, I don’t want it.”
She grabs my arm. “Monroe—”
“Did you even want me?” The question I’ve been wondering my whole life bursts out of me. My eyes brim with tears, making it difficult to see. I blink, and they fall, but I’m too tired to care. I’ve never been so afraid to hear an answer. My heart pounds as I wait for the inevitable.
Harriet doesn’t say a word, but her face is all the answer I need. She never wanted me. I shake my head, anger and disappointment coursing through me in equal measure.
Fighting to keep myself afloat, I press on. “All you needed to say was yes, and I would’ve believed you.” I feel like a child begging.
Her lips purse, her eyes wide as she stares at me. “I never said anything.”
“No answer is an answer, Harriet.”
Her remorse isn’t real. I know that now. Genuine regret would be actually addressing the issues we have or apologizing and trying to make things right. It isn’t whatever this is. I fight to move past her, but she digs her nails harder into my arm.
Harriet’s face tightens, and just like that, her expression shifts. “You might hate me now, but one day, you’ll understand me.” Her voice is bitter, detached.
I pry my arm away from her. “I’ll never understand you.”
My body goes numb, and the adrenaline leaves me drained. I trudge to my bedroom and lie down on my bed. You might hate me now, but one day, you’ll understand me. It’s easy for her to say she has no guilt, but I don’t think I will ever understand how someone can treat their child the way she treated me.
When someone validates those feelings of being unwanted, it makes everything else seem unimportant, too minuscule to even hold up. It feels like my heart has been ripped from my chest. It’s still beating, but barely. I can’t do anything but watch as the organ wails. My eyes close, and I hope that when I wake up, I’ll feel better. But somehow, I doubt it.
“Have another shot. You’ll feel better,” Kevin says, passing me another shot of tequila. I don’t hesitate and throw it back, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
My actions have been monotonous ever since the revelation earlier. In the back of my mind, I knew the truth; I think some part of me always has, but when you come face-to-face with that truth, it almost always knocks you on your ass anyway, regardless of whether you’re expecting it or not.
I didn’t ask for any of this. She chose to have me; she chose to raise me, even when my father walked out. Looking back, maybe she should have chosen differently. Maybe she would have saved us both some heartache and abandoned me somewhere for a random passerby to find. Maybe we’d both be happier for it. But I can’t change the past, and neither can she, so I just have to live with it. Or that’s what I tell myself.
“Hey, you good?” Kevin asks me, grabbing my hand. He squeezes it, and I smile, nodding.
“Yeah, I am.” My smile feels hollow, but I push myself from the bar and nod. Dragging Kevin with me, I yell, “Let’s dance!”
Kevin spins me around, and the music drowns my giggle out. He volunteered to be my chaperone tonight. I should be pissed that Laryssa and him think I need a babysitter, but I think they’re right. I’m spiralling. But right now, I don’t care.
Time loses all meaning, and I don’t know how long we’ve been dancing, but I’m sweaty and losing my buzz. I lean closer to Kevin. “I’m going to get a drink.” He nods.
The crowd around the bar is compact, and I push past people in my way so that I can see the bartender. I bump into the guy standing beside me, and his drink almost spills on me. He looks up, his scowl turning into a sly smile.
“My fault,” he says, patting his chest. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Can I get you a drink?” the man asks, his eyes sweeping over me.
Instead of saying no, like I should, I say, “Sure.”
The man, whose name is Calvin, has been talking my ear off and buying me drink after drink. I throw my head back in laughter as his hand falls onto my knee. I’m still not exactly certain that this guy knows I’m not all that interested. But the alcohol he plastered me with has done the job. I can’t feel anything except the dizziness and slight nausea.
His hand drifts higher and higher, but I have enough awareness to know that I should stop him. I rise on wobbly legs, stepping back from him.
“You okay?” he asks, but honestly, I don’t even know if that’s what he said.
The room is spinning, and my whole body is on fire, and this is the last place I should be.
“Y-yes,” I mumble, stumbling as I back away farther. “Actually, no. I’m not.”
Tears come fast, and they don’t stop. If anyone told me a month ago that I’d be hysterically crying in the middle of a nightclub in front of a reasonably attractive man, I wouldn’t have believed them. But here I am. I’m gasping for air and clutching my chest because the pain is suffocating me. An arm wraps around me, but I don’t bother looking up. I just let them guide me elsewhere.
I’m huddled in a corner near the back exit of the club. The lights aren’t as bright, and the music is not as loud. Kevin crouches down beside me.
“Hey, are you okay?”
I wipe my snotty nose with my hand. “Not even a little.”
He sighs and hands me a bottle of water. “Here, drink this.”
I chug the water and feel a little better.
“Let me take you home.”
“No, no, no, I can’t. She’s there still. I can’t face her, not yet.”
“I’d let you crash with me, but all my roommates are home. I wouldn’t subject you to that.”
It might be the alcohol talking, but one place pops into my head.
“Walk me to The Cerulean. Please .”
Kevin nods, and he pulls me to my feet a second later.
I’ve been in my head the whole time we were walking to the resort, trying to figure out what to say to Kevin. Before I know it, we’re stopped right in front of it.
“Why are we here, Monroe?”
I rub my eyes furiously, probably smudging my eyeshadow. I’m dying to tell someone, to be honest with someone in my life. Kevin waits for my answer.
“Because I need to see someone.”
“Who?”
My thoughts feel jumbled, but I try to gather them. “Do you know Alden Van Doren?”
Kevin’s face goes from confused to angry to in awe in a matter of seconds.
“Is he Monroe’s Mystery Man?” he asks.
I roll my eyes at the name. “Sort of.”
His excitement is short-lived. “Does Laryssa know?”
“No, she doesn’t. And please, please, don’t tell her. I’m still trying to figure out how to tell her about it.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
I practically lunge into Kevin’s arms, snuggling into his shoulder.
“I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?”
“Have a good night.” He gives me a peck on the cheek, then turns and walks back up the street.
Only when Kevin is out of view do I make my way inside, breathing harder than I was a moment ago. I don’t know why I’m here. I just know that I need to see Alden. Like I’m being pulled toward him.