“They have names.”
She chuckles sleepily. “Yeah, they do, but after the way your back seat bestie looked at me yesterday, I think I’ll take a page from Harry Potter and fear speaking his name aloud.”
I scoff, a small smile tugging at my lips, but my muscles ache beneath my skin. My mother’s voice grows closer, so I tug myself up.
“Want to come over, watch some Kardashians or something?” Cali offers.
I know I’m messed up in the head when that sounds amazing.
“I can’t.” I put the phone on speaker and set it on top of the dresser, tightening my ponytail and running my fingers under my eyes, patting at the puffiness my sleepless night gifted me. “I have to go, and I might not be around to answer calls today, but I’ll check my messages when I can.”
“Well, unless Jules can sweet talk her way out of the hospital’s regulation of the mandatory psycho watch, I say you’ll be missing nothing.”
“True. Okay, talk to you later.” I hang up, stuff my phone in my closest bag and open the bedroom door to find my mom headed right for me, a glam team silently following.
“What, you have a key to his house?”
“Your house?” she corrects but waves me off and steps inside the giant space. “No, I don’t have a key, but you have a maid, and maid’s open doors when someone knocks.” She spins on her heels. “I called you three times.”
“I know. I’m the one who hit ignore.”
She looks over my shoulder. “Come in, set up. We’ll be right back.”
She steps out and with a roll of my eyes, I follow her into the kitchen where an espresso machine is being set up in the corner.
A hint of satisfaction twitches at my lips, but it’s an extremely low win at this point.
“I thought you were strong, Jameson? Tough.”
“I am.”
“No, you’re not. You’re standing here acting like a child and pitying yourself. You’re not a prisoner here, Jameson. It’s simply a new place to call home. Nothing changes in your contract.” She shakes her head and tries a different approach. “You are the one who wanted this.” She slips closer, reminding me of the words I once spoke to her, but standing here, I can’t remember if they were ever even mine, or if they were planted like a seed, and called upon at the precise moment she planned for, the skill she’s perfected that’s led her to courtroom victories, time and time again.
She’s a cold woman, and she never should have been blessed with children, let alone daughters—a fact she’d agree upon.
I shake my head. “My dad would be so disappointed in you.”
“Yes, well.” She nods. “The weak always are.”
Her blatant disregard for her deceased husband is sickening and steals the air from my lungs, but she either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as she goes to turn away.
“Are you not going to tell me Happy Birthday?”
She freezes, her eyes slicing to mine.
“You flew here, passed me off. You’re officially free of kin duties now, but would it kill you to smile, and say ‘Happy Birthday, Jameson?’”
My mom studies me curiously, slowly turning to face me once more. “Honey, please don’t tell me you went and turned into your sister?”
My eyes widen. “Are you serious right now?”
“Are you?” she counters. “Have you truly strayed so far that you now need the validation in the form of an adolescent’s wasted wish?”
“Do you hear yourself?!” I shriek. “Can you even see me?! Am I fucking invisible!” I clutch my chest. “I tried to open up to you yesterday, something I have never done, and you basically spit in my face! You’re my mother! Can you not see that I’m not okay?!”
My mother sighs. “Jameson, keep your voice down—”
“Fuck off!” I throw my hand out, sending everything on the counter crashing to the floor, and everyone else in the room quickly rushes out of it.
“Fuck. Off!” I scream. “This is your fault! Everything is your fault, I—” I break off in a numb chuckle, my hand flying up to my forehead as I look away. “I’m broken. I’m... I’m a fucking mess.”
I snap forward, jerking toward her but the woman doesn’t so much as flinch. “You told me to feel was to fall flat on my face, but you had it all wrong. To fight what you feel is so much worse because there are things you can’t push away, and then everything you’ve fought off for so long comes raging like a fucking hurricane, suffocating you from the inside out. I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep or eat. I fuck up over and over again, running from what’s real because I’m too messed up to recognize it.”
I glare at my mother.
“I don’t even know how to let someone love me, let alone love someone back.” Thick, unrelenting claws curl beneath my rips, tugging and tearing, yanking.
Everything hurts.
“You ruined me,” I croak.
“My god... Jameson,” my mother whispers, and there’s another crack somewhere. Everywhere.
The corner of her mouth lifts the smallest bit, her left arm coming up and gently brushing my cheek. “Take a Xanax already.”
Her hand falls, and with it, my heart hits my feet. I stumble backward, hitting my hip on the kitchen island, but she doesn’t notice.
She’s already walking away, but I’m frozen in the spot, spinning and spinning. I might vomit.
I don’t know how long I stand there, but I’m still attempting to remember how to breathe when a soft palm lands over mine on the countertop I don’t remember grabbing on to.
The hand is small, telling of age, and I lift my eyes to find the softest shade of brown.
Nana, the housemaid, stands there, a steaming cappuccino in her free hand. She lowers it to the countertop with an encouraging smile. “I’m happy to have whatever you wish ready for you when you wish, but something tells me you’d like to know how to work the machine on your own?”
I nod, struggling to find my voice.
“Good, and it will keep you from them a while longer.” She tips her chin with a smile.
A low, unexpected chuckle escapes, and we take as long as possible to go over the instructions on the espresso machine, but eventually, I make it into the room where everyone waits on me.
My mother barks instructions and I play like porcelain, cold and lifeless, unmistakably still with my spine straight, neck stretched, and chin high as they turn me into whatever she sees fit.
I’m primped and pressed, and when the clock hits six-forty-one, my lipstick is applied for me.
She nods in approval of the royal blue dress she surely picked out.
It hits mid-thigh, lies elegantly over my skin with long sleeves and a cross-over cut in the front. I have no cleavage showing, but my shape is accentuated as intended. My pumps are nude, bangles golden, hoop earrings a perfect match.
“Well, my job is done.” She smiles, proud of herself.
“Yeah, as of last night, when you used me to your advantage.”
“I didn’t—”
“Save it, Mother. I’m here, I’m all dolled up, as intended. You can go now.”
“You better shape up, Jameson Jole, or we all lose.”