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For six years, I’ve been played. I’ve been a marionette dangled on strings, pulled all around the world by puppeteers.
And for what? Why is it so goddamn important to my parents that Cole and I stay apart? How could he let them manipulate us like this? If he loved me, he wouldn’t have let it happen.
My skull throbs with every beat of my pulse. My eyelids are swollen and raw. Still, I’m drawn to the letters and emails, the horrible, destructive words before me laid out by the woman who gave me life.
Cole,
Or should I call you Stanley? Emily said you called her last week. We were able to undo your harm, once again, not that you seem to care. Every time you call, email, text her, she regresses. YOU ARE HURTING HER. It’s not bad enough I have to live with what your sick family has done to me, I will not watch Emily suffer, too. Do us all a favor and jump off the London Bridge while you’re over there. STAY THE FUCK OUT OF OUR LIVES!!
Ava
Cole,
Attached is a photo with her new boyfriend. He’s a PhD student, will be a pediatrician. Look how happy she is. She’s on the Dean’s list again this semester. She loves her new dorm and has a host of amazing friends in her life. She hasn’t spoken of you in over a year. You’re doing the right thing, I’m proud of you.
Ava
Cole,
I don’t know what game you’re playing, but this needs to end. She cannot work with you. How could you be so stupid? Haven’t you learned anything over all these years? You’re still you, nothing has changed. Stop avoiding my calls, email me back.
Ava
Bile creeps up my throat again as I reread everything for the hundredth time. All these years, it was my dad who was hellbent on keeping Cole and me apart. But even he never said such horrible, manipulative things. Mom was supportive, listened when I talked about Cole, watched his races, kept up with his career.
It was all lies. She was manipulating me as much as him.
Like an idiot, I fell for it. I told her everything about Cole, my new job, and it only gave her intel so she could hurt us worse.
Why? How could she do this? She knew how badly I was hurt when he left. She knew my pain when he stopped calling, when never wrote me back—all the letters he never got. She must have intercepted them after I put them in our mailbox.
My fingers are shaking when I push the call button, but I can’t call Ava right now. I don’t even want to refer to her as my mother, right now.
I call the Major General.
“Sweetheart?” He answers after two rings.
I can hear sounds of the military base in the background, engines whirring, soldiers barking out orders.
I haven’t spoken to him in months, but the sound of his voice enrages me.
“What the fuck, Dad!” I’ve never spoken this way to my father, no one has. Grown men, battle-hardened soldiers, live in fear of the Major General. But I can’t control it, it comes out on its own, like a burst dam.
There’s a pause, he’s clearly caught off guard, which is unprecedented. Nothing gets past the Major General. No-one gets the jump on him.
“What’s wrong? Are you okay? I’m at work, sweetheart.”
“I don’t give a shit where you are, DAD,” I growl the word. He’s as far from a father to me right now as Ava is a mother, as far as I’m concerned.
“I suggest you remember who you’re speaking to, Emily, and tell me what is going on.” I hear him cover the phone and issue an order to someone nearby, then the sounds in the background grow faint like he’s walking away to get privacy.
Good.
“I am your daughter! How could you do this to me?” Tears stream down my eyes, my voice shakes.
As angry as I am, I’m so hurt. But I can’t deny there is
also a little girl still inside of me who is panicked and filled with fear speaking to her father like this.
