Page 56 of Use Me Up

He raises his eyebrows.

“I don’t want it to be over yet,” I breathe, very quietly, but I know everyone at the table hears.

Ellis’s jaw twitches. He’s still expressionless, but he puts a hand on my thigh.

I feel the heat of it burning into me, and it sears me but it somehow sears out all the fear as well. I am nothing but heat, nothing but desire, and that is what this man does to me.

“Hannah,” says my mother, “I wonder if we can talk somewhere alone.”

Ellis squeezes my thigh. “I’m all right here,” he says to me.

So, I leave the table, and I go off with my mother.

She paces in the hallway outside the dining room, shaking her head. “I neglected you.”

“Mom.” Not this again. Not her mom guilt. I do not need this right now. “We have talked about this. A woman can only be one woman, and you showed me that a woman could be a leader and work in government and change policy and do what she believes in, and that’s a balance against whatever else you weren’t there for, and everyone blames their mothers for something, and all mothers fail, because no one’s perfect, and this is not your fault. And anyway, there’s nothing wrong with me.”

There, maybe she’ll shut up.

She continues pacing. “I made you feel like you didn’t matter. I never paid attention to you, so you never thought you were worth attention.”

“Mom, no,” I say.

“And now, you feel like you can’t get attention, so you’re settling for it with him, with that man.” She comes over to me. “I don’t know if Andrew knows this, but when I found them, the thing they wanted the most was access to an abortion.”

“No, he told me,” I say. Sort of.

She starts, surprised by that. “Really?”

“Mom, I don’t know what it was like for them growing up on that compound, not exactly, but you’re the one who always said that we need options for people trying to leave the Polloi that aren’t essentially erasing their designations.”

“Well, obviously, but—”

“But you don’t think people who were traumatized like that should be treated like humans, just kept away from anyone you actually care about?”

“I never wanted them for you two, not for my children,” she says. “Not because they’re not human, but maybe because of trauma. That’s a lot for you to take on. I was not pleased about what happened with Andrew, and you know that, but it’s done, so all I want to do now is try to triage this.”

“You’re being dramatic,” I say.

“Don’t throw that in my face. I’m an alpha, and I am treating this with exactly the amount of seriousness I think it warrants.”

I sigh.

She takes my hand. “Hannah, you can do better than that.”

I pull my hand out of hers. “No, I can’t.”

“You don’t need to lower yourself to—”

“Mom, I’m not lowering myself. I don’t get any attention. This is better than nothing. He’ll get tired of me, and I’ll settle into my life of being a cat lady, maybe an aunt to Andrew’s kids if he and Calliope ever have them. But I’m not the sort of woman that men even want. And it’s not because you neglected me, it’s only because I’m…” I gesture at myself. “This.”

My mother looks horrified. She is speechless as she shakes her head.

And then the doorbell rings.

She furrows her brow and goes past me, down the hallway, to answer the door. I hear her saying, “Oh, Calliope, what a surprise.”

Well, I guess that was who Andrew was texting.