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Mom stares at me in horror, her eyes wide. “Oh, Brielle. I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I was just so excited to see you. I’ve never been away from you for so long before.”
I shove past her, needing the counter to hold me up and grip onto it with everything I have before sliding my ass onto the bar stool. Sucking in deep breaths, I try to breathe through the pain, unable to trust myself to speak until it finally begins to ease.
Mom steps in beside me, her hand gently rubbing up and down my back. “How can I help? Do you need an ice pack or some painkillers?”
I shake my head. “I just need a minute,” I say, the hostility clear in my tone.
“Perhaps you should be taking the day off,” she suggests. “No one expects you to go to school. I can call your principal and explain what happened. I’m sure he’ll understand. Besides,” she adds. “I haven’t seen you in so long. We have so much to catch up on and I want to share everything about my trip. Paris was wonderful. It’s a shame we had to cut it short though.”
I scoff. “Cut it short? You were supposed to be home days ago.”
She shakes her head. “What do you mean, darling? We extended it to a week-long trip. Did Jensen not tell you? Orlando said he was going to call and let you both know.”
“Wow, so nice of you to have called me yourself,” I mutter darkly, my stare locked on the fruit bowl in front of me. “And no, Jensen had no idea that you had extended your trip.”
“That’s peculiar,” she mutters to herself.
I shake my head, more than done with her this morning. I’m sure had she not decided to squeeze me so soon after breaking a rib, I probably would have had more patience for her. Grabbing a banana from the fruit bowl, I prepare myself to stand again. “I need to get to school.”
Mom’s hand falls away but a shimmer catches in the light and my head whips down to her hand. As if seeing where my attention has gone she hastily covers the massive rock resting on her ring finger. “What the fuck is that?” I demand, flying to my feet, my banana dropping to the ground as I grab her hand instead. “You’re engaged?”
Mom cringes and tries to pull her hand free. “I … no, it’s not quite what you’re thinking.”
My eyes are wide, confusion tearing at my chest. “Then what?” I demand. “You don’t have the money to buy something like that for yourself, and if a man gives you a ring, it only means one thing.”
“We …” she cringes again, and it makes me want to shake her. “We got married, darling.”
A different kind of pain rocks through me, and I fall back a step, staring at her in horror. “You got married to this guy? Without even talking to me or Damien about it? You just went ahead and uprooted our lives to become some kind of Stepford wife?”
“No, Brielle, it’s not like that at all. Why are you making such a big deal about this? You’re eighteen now and soon enough you’ll be away at college. Damien is already away, and I’m sure the moment he gets back from bootcamp, he’ll be right out the door again, then what am I supposed to do? I’ll be all alone. Orlando loves me and wants to show me the world and shower me in diamonds, so why shouldn’t I allow myself to be happy?”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy, Mom. I do. Of course I want that for you, but didn’t you think for one second that this is something you should at least have the decency to tell me first so I’m not blindsided by it? Or was I so far down on your agenda that you didn’t even consider how Damien or I might have felt? Hell, you took off to Paris without even a goodbye, so I suppose that answers my question.”
Without another word, I storm past her, but she grabs my wrist and yanks me back. “Don’t you speak to me like that,” she spits as I cry out, the pain tearing through me. “I am your mother and you will show respect for me.”
“Respect?” I demand, trying not to cry. “Maybe I’ll respect you when you start to show that you have respect for yourself. Look at you Mom. Everything we did together, the life we grew, you threw it all away for the chance at being some rich guy’s bitch. Do you even love him, Mom? Have you ever looked deeper than the surface to get to know him? Because I sure as hell know that he’s not the kind of guy I’d want to spend the rest of my life with.”
