AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Perfect?” I snapped, not being able to wait for her to finish the sentence.
She just exhaled like I was annoying her, which I knew I did ever since she gave birth to me. She waved me off and moved towards the living room. “Take the china down, Clementine.”
I smashed the mug on the floor with a hysterical scream, and my mother turned to face me. Silence fell between us for a few seconds.
“You broke it beyond repair,” Sylvia hissed as she looked at the pieces all over the kitchen floor.
“You broke your children beyond repair,” I said, my throat hurting from the scream I had let out. I was now grateful there was a party next door, otherwise the neighbors would have had heard me.
“You made Tyler and Madison run so far away that they have an excuse not to come back here. Guess what will happen when I graduate?” I smirked. I was in a full bitch mode now. “You spent my entire life reminding me you never wanted me, and yet you pushed me to fulfill your expectations,” I paused and got down from the chair. A piece of the mug pierced my foot, but I refused to let her see me in pain, so I went to her, not even bothering looking down to avoid other cuts.
I stopped one step away from her and shook my head still with a smirk on my face.
“Three children and you’re gonna die alone. Probably covered in booze and your own vomit,” I cocked my head to the side and wondered. “Do you think all three of us would make it to the funeral?”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed and her lips were so tightly pursed, it almost looked like she didn’t have any.
“You are the biggest mistake I ever made,” she said as if she hadn’t already said that a thousand times. I shrugged.
“I don’t care what you think of me. I’m not Madison”.
Chapter Five
Lucas
Eight years ago
I was sitting on the grass in my backyard, looking at the new boy Hannah brought with her for the last couple of days. Everyone was already here, except Clem. We were going to play hide and seek. Amy was pushing us to start without her, but I wanted to wait. The others didn’t care about the game anyway. Chase was inside, stuffing his face with my mother’s home baked cherry pie and making my two-year-old brother laugh, and Hannah was asking the new boy every question on planet Earth.
He was visiting his grandparents who lived right next to Hannah. That was enough for her to start bringing him everywhere she went. I didn’t mind, but I didn’t pay much attention to him either. He was only visiting for a few weeks this summer, so what was the point. But it was nice to have a third boy in the group. I was getting tired of playing girl’s games most of the time just because there were two of us and three of them. The girls won every time we voted. Dylan, being here, didn’t help us win, but it made the girls negotiate instead of just order us around.
I was glancing at the door leading to our kitchen for the fifteenth time, wondering if I should go get Clem, when she finally arrived. I jumped on my feet and smiled at her. She walked over to me first. We were both doing that whenever we were entering a room. We immediately found one another. Mom said we were like magnets from the moment we met.
Clem stopped right in front of me with her red nose and puffy eyes; her gaze moved from her shoes to mine. I felt something in my chest every time she cried. I didn’t know that it was, but it was painful and it made me want to make her laugh no matter what.
“Can we play now?” Amy asked with irritation.
I ignored her and focused on Clem.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded and a smile I learned to recognize as a fake one formed on her lips.
“What are we playing?” her voice sounded different from the crying.
“Hide and seek?” I asked. We had already voted, but I didn’t care. I would kick everyone else out and stare at the wall for the rest of the day if she wanted me to.
“Inside?” she wanted to know.
I nodded with pride. I had already convinced mom to let us hide inside the house. We had a pretty big backyard but there were no good hiding places for six people.
While we played the first two games, I noticed Dylan was staring at Clem every time he had the chance. It annoyed me in a weird way. While seeing her cry weighted on my chest like someone was sitting on top of me, this felt more like something rising in my stomach, slowly but surely spreading all over my body, all the way to my hands, making them clench into fists. And instead of feeling pushed down, I felt like I was able to demolish every wall around me.
She was my best friend, and I already shared her with Hannah. There was no way I was sharing her with him too.
“Do you want to go outside?” Clem suggested, then without waiting for anyone’s answer pushed my shoulder, giggled, and started running. Had she felt the tension building inside me? Or she just wanted me to chase her? I wasn’t sure, but I ran after her like I always did.
I heard the others teasing each other behind us. Soon we were all running away from the others, trying to avoid being caught. At some point the twins were both trying to catch me. I stood still for a moment, figuring out which way to go. I decided I had a better chance escaping Amy than her brother, so I ran towards her and glanced around to check on Clem.
