We were sitting in the car, and outside our soundproof bubble, Brianne waited at her front door. She smiled down the driveway, one hand on her narrow hip and the other shielding her eyes from the sun. She was impatient for me, and I couldn’t enjoy it. Not when there was a warning to issue.
“I want my life back,” I said.
We were alone, if visible, and my mask was not altogether in place yet. It didn’t have to be. When it’s only me and my mother, I can uncoil the part of myself that only someone with a matching part would understand. Anyone else would consider my age and be completely incapable of interpreting my conversation as anything more potent than teenage disrespect. The fact that my mother never stoops to chastising, that she never bests me with allusions to an established familial hierarchy, is the confirmation Nichole Turner refuses to verbalize.
The day I made my desires clear, Brianne was doing the polite work of intentionally avoiding looking directly into the car, lest she infringe on our privacy. This was a difficult time for the Turner family, she understood; otherwise there would have been no need and no permission for my long visits. This one would become an extended stay, but I couldn’t know that yet. Nichole Turner said nothing while I delivered what turned out to be a futile demand.
“I want my house, with my pool, where I live. I won’t adjust to anything else. Not even this.”
When I looked at her, my mother’s oval face was turned toward me. She was ignoring her dear friend, and I thought it meant she understood.
“Farrah,” she said through a sigh.
“I can’t make it any easier,” I said before she could speak again. “I’m telling you exactly what I want.”
We have the same jewel-brown eyes. No one would understand, but that’s part of how I know we’re alike. Her eyes can glint the same way mine do. They can carry a message, or a warning, that leaves the rest of her face untouched. Brianne could fix her gaze directly on my mother or me and she still wouldn’t see. She wouldn’t notice the facets of my mother’s eyes, that there are fragments of Nichole Turner’s real self hidden across them. No amount of study would reveal what Nichole—what we—artfully conceal.
But my mother has a flaw. A hint of a dimple in her left cheek. She wasn’t born with it; she says she fell when she was a child, that it’s damaged tissue, not an adorable feature like Cherish’s—but that’s the way it looks. It softens her when she needs to look assertive. It tells on the slightest twitch of her lips and makes her look uncertain. Vulnerable.
Maybe that’s why she lost everything. Maybe it’s the only way someone like us could.
I’m glad she fell. It means the dimple was never going to be hereditary.
“Whatever you have to do,” I told her, lowering my chin and relaxing the muscles in my face as though preparing a canvas. I was going to get out of the car soon and go bounding over to my best friend’s mom in a show of girlish exuberance that was doomed to collapse. “Get it back.”
She didn’t.
I don’t live at the Whitmans’ now because I decided it’s what I would prefer when my parents moved into a rental. I did not plant the idea in my parents’ minds. I’m here because they decided it would be easier for me, and they settled it with Brianne and Jerry before they ever broached the subject with me.
That’s what makes it unbearable. That’s why I’ve been sick. Cherish thinks it’s the stress of having my world upended that’s disrupting my body, but I know better. I know what’s curdling deep in my guts, jostling my thoughts, and depleting any energy I try to cull to plot my own course.
Control, I think as I stare at my reflection. Water still clings to my face, and a harsh, acidic taste persists in dotting my tongue no matter how many times I rinse my mouth. I’ve gone to Cherish’s en suite, where no party guest will stumble onto me, but I know it’s only a matter of time before my best friend comes looking.
There is no excuse for my weakness, betrayed or not. Especially when betrayed. I am teaching my parents and anyone paying attention that—like everyone else—I am weakened by defeat.
I refuse to be when there’s an alternative they do not expect.
So, control. Of what—and when—I let them see.
Where are you? I text my mother. I want to go home.
I stare at the words, but I don’t send them.
This is Nichole Turner I’m talking to. I will not beg. I can’t afford to make her doubt who we both are.
I expect you to be here soon, I send instead, and my mother texts right back.
I’m sorry, baby, I thought I’d be out of here by now! I know you’re uncomfortable, Fair, and I meant to be there.
She’s speaking through the mask, like we have an audience again. Like she’s standing next to my dad and she wants me to know.
Can’t afford to turn down contracts, no matter how far out of the way the clients are. Coming straight from here, I promise. But it might be a bit.
And Dad? I type, curious how she’ll explain his absence without admitting he’s there with her, but before I can send it, she starts to type something else. And before the bubbles stop dancing and the text appears, I already know what she’s going to say.
It means the world that Brianne and Jerry want you there. They’ve been adamant that you stay with Cherish, and I know it’s where you’d rather be.
She says it like it’s the rented house’s fault that it’s embarrassingly cramped, and not hers for choosing it. Like anything should’ve been more important than what I told her I could not accept.
I am not demanding because—like my mother—I cannot live with someone else in control.
This tug-of-war we’re in is only natural, because we’re mother and child. She’s got the advantage right now, but it’s my own fault. I taste the acid on my tongue. I’ve been too indulgent with my devastation, so my mother’s texts go on and on.
I know this is difficult, and I really wish it weren’t. I didn’t think it would be.
But it’s so important we are gracious with them. No one wanted your life uprooted over all this, least of all your dad and I.
This is a good thing, Farrah . . . even if you can’t say you decided it.
She signs off with a kiss, and I’m left swallowing the hard lump in my throat because Nichole Turner has managed to have her say before tidily closing the conversation. Texting back would look weak. Confrontational.
I’m standing in my best friend’s bathroom, clutching my phone while I try to regulate my breathing. I run my eyes over the glass basin beneath the elegant faucet, look at the oversized mirror and the extravagant assortment of organic skin conditioners, pre-poo treatments, scalp serums, tangle teasers, and the kinds of unprocessed concoctions that come with minimalist labels and impressive price tags.