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The answer to controlling me was always there, from the time Scarlett became my first and best friend, but I was too naive to see it.
I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I was in control. I thought I was the one that had something on her.
I found the thing my mother found the most important without even trying.
For her, the woman who had no animation when she was by herself, it was all about appearances. Her entire life was a sham, a play, and that's all she wanted it to be. She cared more about what the world thought than she did the actual reality of it.
Once I knew that it was a simple thing to figure out what she wanted from me. And once I had that, I figured I had the power to keep her from taking what was important to me.
She loved to bring me out at parties, loved to show off her strapping boy, with his perfect teeth, his good looks, his blond hair, blue eyes, and straight posture—the very image of his handsome father. Thanks to her expectations, I was better at making conversation with adults than other kids, and her 'friends' found this endlessly charming.
She was very happy with that.
I let her have it for a while. She'd taught me well. I even went out of my way to ham it up, her charming little boy, but I made a note of how it pleased her, how she expected, needed my impeccable behavior to help illustrate how perfect, how complete of a person she was pretending to be.
I kept that little card to myself until I needed it, because I always knew I would.
And I did. It was the first time she got an inkling of how close I'd grown to what she referred to as, "That Theroux girl," in her most derisive tone.
She didn't beat around the bush. The day she found out we walked home together from school, she forbid me from ever speaking to Scarlett again.
With a somber face I told her calmly and simply, "No."
She smiled smugly, like she'd been expecting that. "I'll talk to that little piece of trash myself. I'll keep her from ever wanting to so much as look at you, that I promise."
That set me off into the biggest rage of my young life. I could see I even shocked my always a step ahead mother as I began to throw things, going from calm and somber to livid and violent between one breath and the next.
I did have a temper, and it was an ugly thing, but on this particular day there was more than a trace of calculation in it. I'd been expecting this for some time.
I'd been preparing for it.
Plotting it.
There would be no do-over. I'd only get one chance. I couldn't risk not taking it far enough, so I let her have it.
We were in her favorite sitting room. Every single thing in the room was meticulously placed, chosen by her. On a normal day, I knew better than to so much as misplace a pillow in this particular room.
This was not a normal day.
I began by reaching down and picking up a prized object on the glossy mahogany coffee table.
It was a Fabergé egg, worth a lot of money, I knew. It was possibly the most valuable thing in this room full of valuables, and that's why I went for it first.
Our eyes met, hers narrowed and disbelieving, mine full of pure, desperate spite. I held her gaze for one meaningful moment just before I turned and threw the thing, with all my might, straight into the wall.
She gasped and started screaming.
I started screaming louder.
That was only the start. I kept going, breaking things until I felt I'd adequately gotten her attention.
That was when I really let her have it. "FUCK. FUCK. FUCK. FUCK!" I screamed into her face.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she screamed back.
My voice got deadly quiet to show her that I was in control of myself. "If you embarrass me to Scarlett I'll make you sorry. Every time you want to show me off at some stupid party, I will put on the stupid suit, I will let you do my stupid hair, and then the second you try to introduce me to someone." I pitched my voice louder suddenly, back to near hysteria. "I'm just going to shout FUCK at the top of my lungs."
Her hand was at her throat. She looked horrified. "What has gotten into you?"
