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Knock.
“Ollie?” I rushed to the door, not bothering to look through the peephole, and I wished to God I had. Because it wasn’t Ollie—it was my real-life mother, dressed in a vintage-style black-and-white cocktail dress with pearls on her ears, wrist, and neck.
“Hello, sweetie.” She invited herself in, heels clicking on the ground as she glanced around the suite with fake curiosity.
“Mother, what are you doing here?”
“Well, you see, something just isn’t right,” she said in tone much colder than usual. “My daughter was brutally attacked mere days ago, and she didn’t bother returning any of my calls…”
“I’m sorr—”
“Then I find out that my other two daughters spent the whole day with her, and not once did anyone think of me. Did I die and everyone forgot to tell me?” she questioned, still not facing me.
“Mother—”
“And that,” she spun on her heel, pointing her red polished nail at me. “In the twenty-five years you have been alive, not once have you ever called me Mother, Amelia.”
Panic.
Fear.
It came over me like waves when I looked into her cold, dead eyes. She didn’t look anything like the woman I knew.
“He told you, didn’t he?” she guessed. Her eyes narrowed in on me. “How much, though? The fact that I forced his low-life self to break up with you?”
Run, Amelia, my mind screamed. But I couldn’t move under her gaze.
“No,” she said. “Then you would be pissed, not scared. So…” She took a step closer to me, and I took a step back. At that, she glared. “Skylar DeGray.”
I clenched my fist.
“Yep, you know,” she said as if it were no big deal. “But than again, even at that, I’m still your mother. You still called me ‘Mom’ right up until your debacle with Ray Mallory. So I’m guessing, and tell me if I’m wrong, you figured out what happened there as well?”
“You had him attack me!” I finally said it. Finally, I confronted her, and she just waved her finger at me.
“Not at all,” she replied, casually moving over to stare at the oil painting of fruits hung on the wall. “I set up the pieces, but it isn’t my fault if someone else knocks them down. Did I know Ray Mallory had a thing for young women? Yes, but every man does. To my credit, I did keep you away from him when you were younger. He was infatuated with you. But then again, far too many grown men were. And yes, I knew the moment you saw those damn butterflies you’d go up to see them. Why? I had no idea, but I knew you would. Then there is the last piece, Noah Sloan. That boy couldn’t stand to be more than ten feet away from you since the day you both met. I figured he would come to find you before anything happened. I’m not heartless.”
“You’re not heartless,” I repeated, laughing bitterly even though the tears dropped freely from my eyes. “What if he hadn’t come? What if—”
“I would have stepped in. Don’t blame me, because it’s his fault for pushing me this far!” she screamed, raising her voice at me for the first time since I was a child. “I. Warned. Him. To. Stay. Away. I warned him ten years ago, and I warned him recently. He ignored me! So I figured maybe a few days in jail, getting kicked off the movie, destroying whatever was left of his lousy career would be enough. But I have to hand it to you, sweetie—somehow you turned it around in just two days. And here I thought you were just a naïve little girl, unaware of all the bad things that happen in this world because I kept them from you. ME!”
She grabbed a vase, throwing it to the ground, where it shattered on impact.
“Everything you have,” she said, grabbing the painting from the wall and flinging it at me so quickly I barely had time to duck, “everything you are, is because of me!” She pushed everything off one of the tables.
“It was me who carried your ungrateful self for nine months as you destroyed my career and body! Me who fed you and clothed you with the finest sheets of silk and cotton! Me who listened to you whine and cry when someone didn’t think you were pretty. Amelia London? Who the fuck would she be if it weren’t for Esther London?” She pulled at a lamp, the cord ripping from the wall, and swung at my head like it was bat.
“Mom, stop!” I said, falling back onto the couch and dashing to the other side when she swung for a second time.
“’Mom?’ No ‘mom!’ You, you ungrateful little bitch, have no right. For everything I have done for you, you don’t deserve to have me as a mother!” She threw the lamp and tried to get away, but she tripped on the corner of the table, falling at my knees.
The moment I turned back, she grabbed my neck, glaring down at me. “Having you was the worst thing that ever happened to me, but I made the best of it. Now you want abandon me for that boy?”
“M—om,” I gasped. I couldn’t breathe. She was going to choke me to death. One of my hands went up to hers on my neck. The other searched the ground until I grabbed a large shard of the broken vase, not caring that it cut my palm. I stabbed it into her arm.
“Agh!” she shouted, releasing me. I got up, my whole body shaking with rage.
“I hate you!” I said to her, lifting my arm and stabbing her again, and again. I couldn’t think. I just wanted her gone. I needed her gone!
