Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 369(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
My phone vibrates in my pocket.
Tim?
I don’t check it, though. Mom has a weird thing about checking phones while we’re eating at the table, and if she has a weird thing about something, Dad and I sure as fuck better comply or face the consequences, which range from her silence to all-out screaming matches.
As I take the last bite of my salmon, I’m thinking of how hungry I am. A meal of salmon, steamed vegetables, and rice isn’t the most filling thing in the world. But I assume there’ll be food at the fundraiser.
When we finish dinner, I head upstairs to my room and check my phone.
It’s Tim again.
HIM: Sucks that my dick is lonely tonight.
ME: The problem is that it doesn’t suck. ;)
HIM: Skip this thing. Get back to the apartment, so I can come.
ME: Can’t.
HIM: Wish I could pull you aside into a room and fuck the shit out of you in front of everyone.
ME: Then why don’t you?
I’m not joking, either. But I doubt he’ll take me seriously.
HIM: Where’s it at?
My interest is piqued, and I guess so is his.
Dad adjusts my tie as we stand in the back room of the Marriott auditorium where Mom will be delivering her speech.
I can’t believe I asked Tim to meet me here.
There’s no way we can mess around. Too many people. And Mom isn’t going to let me escape for a second, but I doubt he’s really going to come.
It was a bluff. He wouldn’t even be able to get in.
Mom stands in the corner of the room, reading from a sheet of paper as she moves her mouth to the words, rehearsing her speech.
I’ve already read it—seen how she’s milking Becky’s death. I think about the little girl with blue eyes and blonde hair as bright as the fake color Mom now has. I get sad as I remember her sitting in a cushioned chair with an IV tube stuck in her. Even then, Mom put on a tough performance. She took Becky to every appointment. Every treatment. She yelled at the doctors and nurses when they fucked up something on my sister’s chart or nearly gave her the wrong meds. But despite how cold she can appear, she’s also the mom I would hear crying in her room when Becky was at her worst. The mom who I watched shake to the floor in a fit of tears in a room at the hospital, gripping me like she needed support from me, even though I desperately needed the same from her.
I never doubted Mom’s sincerity back then. But now that Becky’s gone, she just cares about how it can further her career. It kills me knowing she can take something that created such a deep wound within me—something that hurt our family so much—and put it on display for the whole fucking state because she sees how good it is for her career.
Can’t she tell she’s not just desecrating our memory of Becky, but destroying me every time she turns it into a performance?
I’d ask her not to go through with it, but this is just one of many similar performances. I thought I’d get used to them after a while, but I never do.
The door opens and Kendra Blake enters.
Kendra is Greg’s mother—the link that will always tie me to Greg. She’s Mom’s attorney, and how Greg and I met initially three years ago. It started as a crush. I was a senior in high school and he was a freshman at Emory, majoring in computer science. He was great with computers but sucked with science. Needed some help with his chemistry homework, and I was eager for an opportunity to win him over, which I did.
The connection between our mothers hasn’t been too much of an issue since we broke up because I only see them occasionally, but I’ve been dreading this particular event because I knew she would be coming.
My greatest fear is realized when Greg steps through the door, entering behind her.
I still see him around school all the time, but I manage to avoid him. He hasn’t tried to approach me since that day he showed up at my apartment uninvited.
Now here we are, stuck in the same room.
He chats up Kendra and Mom before he meanders over and offers a friendly, “Hey, man.”
His expression is filled with guilt, as it fucking should be.
“Hey,” I say, and even though I’m trying to sound harsh, I can tell that fucking around with Tim has helped me heal because confronting him now is easier than it used to be. Also helps knowing he and Morgan are having issues right now.
Since this is Mom’s night, I’ll be cordial.
“How’ve you been?” he asks. “Haven’t seen you around the usual places.”
“I’ve been busy. School. Work.”
Getting plowed by Tim.