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Could he smell me on her?
Was my scent still in the room?
Does he know?
My stomach is awash with nervous energy and fear for my little mouse when I pull up to a house I haven’t seen in a while.
I shouldn't really be surprised that this was where I'd end up. I like torturing myself, after all, and I've just left one car crash behind only to walk into another.
Killing the engine, I sit back, staring at the house that was my home for almost all of my life—well, until I was banished from town and cast aside as if I never existed.
I blow out a breath and push my door open. Mom’s home. Her car is in its usual space, along with the housekeeper’s.
My hands tremble as I try to contain the storm that's threatening to erupt within me, and I swing the front door open and step inside. The familiar scent of jasmine hits my nose, but where it once made me feel safe, content, I no longer feel anything.
"Hello?" I boom through the silent house.
Movement erupts from upstairs, and in a few seconds footsteps race toward the stairs.
"Bexley? Oh my goodness. Bexley!"
Mom flies down the stairs at the speed of light before she crashes into me, flinging her arms around my neck and squeezing me tight.
I don't return her excitement. Instead, I leave my arms by my side and wait for her to get her fill.
"I've missed you so much," she sobs against my shoulder. I refrain from pointing out that if she never sent me away like an unwanted pet then she wouldn't have to miss me, but at this point, my leaving Sterling Bay seems like the least of my issues.
Finally, after long minutes, she pulls back and wipes her tear-coated cheeks.
"Oh it's so good to… your face," she says in horror as she attempts to frown, but her Botox stops most of the movement in her face.
My bruises are mostly gone now, but there's still some evidence lingering from last weekend's fight.
"What happened?"
"You happened," I spit, turning my back on her and stalking toward the kitchen, my sudden need for a drink too much to deny.
I march straight to the refrigerator and pull out one of Dad's beers.
"Bexley, isn't it a little early for—"
"Really?" I spit. "Are you really going to stand there and criticize my choices after all the times y
ou've fucked up?"
"Bexley?" she sighs, fresh tears welling in her eyes.
"No. Don't ‘Bexley’ me, Mom. You lied to me my entire life. No, actually, you didn't just lie to me. You lied to Dad, too. You betrayed both of us."
"It wasn't like that," she cries.
"No? So what was it like?"
"I was protecting you. Don't you see that?"
"Well, a fine job you've done of that, Mom. I've ended up right in the middle of where you apparently didn't want me. You ran, you lied, you did all of that to keep me from my rightful place as heir of that bullshit, yet at the first sniff of trouble, you send me back there. What the hell, Mom?"
Her tears finally fall, and she makes no attempt to hide them from me like she would have in the past.
