I fly away from Connor, almost tripping when he’s slow to let me go. Mom stands in the arched entrance to the kitchen in a robe, murder in her eyes.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
She takes me in and I’m painfully aware of how this looks—making out in the kitchen in the middle of the night, a baking bomb left in our wake, and his flour handprints on my ass. This is my worst nightmare. She’s already on my case all the time about what I wear, demanding I dress modestly. Now she discovers me in comfortable but way more revealing clothes than she’d ever approve of me wearing and seconds from climbing my boyfriend like a tree.
Hopefully she can’t tell we’ve had sex, or she’ll blow her lid. I’ve tuned out enough of her lectures about my sacred gift—gag. She never listens when I insist virginity is a bullshit social construct designed by the patriarchy.
I have no regrets about sleeping with Connor. None. It was amazing and he treated me like a queen.
“Thea,” Mom hisses. I know it’s bad when she’s so angry she can’t even raise her voice. “Get to bed, now. And you.” She swings on Connor, pointing at him while she holds her robe closed. “Get out of my house before I call the cops.”
“Second time’s the charm, right?” Connor gives Mom a cocky smirk.
I stare at him with my eyes wide in terror. Do you have a death wish? I ask with my expression. He winks at me. Winks! Across the room, Mom’s nostrils flare. I brace for the incoming rage. Talking back to her never goes well.
“You think I won’t? You’re trespassing. Get. Out.” Mom grabs the landline—the one she refuses to get rid of because ‘it works perfectly fine’—brandishing it at Connor. “They should’ve locked you up before. You’re not just a vicious miscreant, you’re a troubled boy.”
“You flatter me.” Connor is still leaning against the counter, not worried that Mom starts dialing. “Tell Chief Landry hi for me. You know, I talked to him earlier? We’re good friends now.”
A vein in Mom’s throat bulges as her throat contracts with her swallow, her face turning a scary shade of red.
“Yeah, yeah.” Connor pops off the counter, hands up. “I know you have a real penchant for calling the cops.” He lowers his voice to a mutter as he makes a show of gathering his things—things he doesn’t have. “Regular ol’ Karen you are, Mrs. K.”
On his way out the back door, Connor blows me a kiss, sealing my fate as grounded forever.
“I’m sorry,” I spit out before Mom can speak. “I won’t bring him here again.”
I turn to go to bed, but Mom plants herself in front of me. “I told you to stay away from him.”
Frustration at being treated like a perpetual child spears through me. Huffing, I square off with Mom.
“You don’t get to dictate everything in my life. Connor is my boyfriend.” She opens her mouth, but I hold up a finger. “And no, I won’t stop seeing him. My life is mine, Mom.”
“You stupid girl,” she seethes. “Fine. Wait until he breaks you, throws you away. Then you’ll see how rotten boys are.”
Surprisingly, she doesn’t try to ground me.
“Jesus, Mom. Do you even listen to yourself?” Rubbing my forehead, I cast a glance around the kitchen. “I’ll clean up tomorrow. I’m going to bed.”
Her poisonous gaze tracks me as I leave the kitchen. While climbing the stairs I can hear her fuming to herself.
It makes me sad. I don’t remember my childhood being awful, other than her obsession with my body and her little nitpicking comments about my outfit choices, so why is she like this now? She was never overly affectionate with me, but she treated me more human when I was a little girl than she does now.
It seems like she’s getting worse and she hates that she can’t control me because I no longer cower in fear of whatever she wants to say about my body to keep me in my place.
Twenty-Four
Connor
Sticking it to Thea’s mom as I strolled out of her house in the middle of the night is one of my top five hashtag swag moments for myself in the last year. I was feeling really damn good about myself, knowing that not only was I pissing her off by my mere presence, but that I also had Thea on my side.
And I know that woman has been fuming about how I’m corrupting her daughter ever since. The next morning she was drinking coffee under their portico, glaring at me as Thea climbed into my ride.
I leaned over and kissed Thea long and hard until she pinched my side. Her mom’s face was fucking priceless before I pulled away from the curb.
What can I say? I don’t do well with overbearing parents telling me what to do. Celine Kennedy can shove her judgement up her ass alongside the broomstick.
Over the next two weeks, Thea and I spend our time together at night in the pool house as our relationship slowly grows. Her work ethic is bleeding into mine because she won’t let me distract her until both of our homework assignments are finished. But once they are? She’s all mine.
My friends accept her when we show up to the parking lot in the morning. I miss Devlin being around, but I don’t mind that he’s been skipping out on us. He’s happy and he needs it. I can’t fault that. We’ll pick up when he comes up for air from his own bubble with Blair Davis.
It feels good to walk into a school I rule with the world’s prettiest sunbeam under my arm, talking my ear off about the upcoming dance.
I’ve already got a plan in the works. She’s been putting her all into heading the committee to organize the dance, so I’m going to make sure her night is nothing but magical.
Half-absorbed in my phone as I follow the flow of foot traffic between classes near the end of the day, it takes me a minute to realize the crowd forming ahead is because some drama is going down. The students blocking my way titter meanly at the scene. I don’t have time for this.
“What, don’t have anything to say? You a mute?”
Some meathead football player pushes someone shorter than him. I can’t see clearly through the crowd. A cheerleader I recognize from that boat party before school stands next to him, smirking triumphantly—Kammy with a K, my mind supplies.
“Gonna go cry about it?” Kammy teases in a nasty tone. “Should’ve thought about that before you butted in.”
They must be picking on someone. A dealer that shorted them on product, or one of the nerds who make bank selling homework.
I switch directions, planning to take the stairs to the second floor to get to my computer science class, but a familiar voice has me halting in my tracks and flying into protective mode.
“Please leave me alone. I didn’t do anything to you.”
Thea.
“Move,” I demand in a deadly voice.
The underclassman in my way might have shit himself when he saw me towering over him before he scurried out of my path. Others spot me and part, lowering their gazes, too afraid to look a crazed beast in the eyes. By the time I bust through the crowd of onlookers, the football player and Kammy are tugging on Thea’s sweater. Fierce rage overtakes me.
Thea stands her ground while they bully her and it eggs them on. They’re probably pissed off she’s not reacting how they thought. I can see it in their eyes: they want her tears. Her humiliation.