AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Jeez, I don’t know,” I pretended I was thinking. “You could have asked. Have you ever considered picking up the phone and callingmeinstead of her? Askingmewhat was going on? None of you asked,” I looked at dad and Ty, then I turned my focus back to Madison. “But especially you. You never ever called me.”
That wasn’t the only thing I accused her of. I hated she started over somewhere else and forgot about me. I knew I had no right, giving everything she did for me when I was little, but I felt like she deserted me the moment her foot was out the door.
“Because I couldn’t stand your whining! Talk like the adult you pretend to be, and maybe we could have a bond. You chose to play that game. Clementine against everyone else. I didn’t force that on us. You did it.”
I couldn’t sit anymore. I shot up and so did dad. He was still silent, but his face twisted with worry.
“I did that because you left me! You took care of me more than anyone in this room and you just left me. You became the perfect daughter. The pretty one. The smart one. The one that was presentable. The one that exceeded all the expectations. You were thewantedone. The one with the beautiful name. I was the one that should have never been born.”
Madison rolled her eyes.
“This again?” she asked.
“About that name,” Sylvia tried to speak. I cut her off.
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“You should. There is a whole story.”
She sounded calm. Like we were not in the middle of a fight.
“I don’t care about your stupid stories! I wanted a mother that loved me. And you made quite the effort to point out you were not that mother.”
“Clementine, calm down,” she ignored my statement. “You have it all wrong. It’s true I didn’t want a third child…”
“Oh my God,” I shook my head in disbelief. “You won’t stop, will you? Even when I tell you I don’t want to hear it.”
“You need to hear it. To understand.”
“I don’t want to understand you. I want to get away from you. Madison is right. I wanted to hurt you. You were hurting yourself with your drinking problem, and I decided it was good enough for me. I knew, thewholetime I knew, I could just call dad and say the word, and he would help you. I just didn’t want to.”
I paused for a second. An idea was already forming inside my head. The anger made me drop the last bomb.
“I didn’t apply. Not to a single college,” my mom’s face went blank. I knew it. “I did it to piss you off. To make you feel ashamed in front of all your friends and neighbors. You know, the people who really matter to you. And not only that, but myhobbygot me an internship. In England. I’m moving, and I’m never ever coming back.”
“What?” dad’s voice boomed. I straightened my back and looked at him.
“I’m leaving.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Really? After everything I said, you think it’s as simple as that. That I’ll subordinate just because you said so.”
“You’re not leaving, Clementine,” dad sounded determined. “I have some connections. We will get you into a college and you’ll stop with this nonsense now.”
That was the last drop. I took my phone, shot a quick text, and ran out of the apartment. Thirty seconds later, Tyler caught up with me.
“Do you want to talk?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
I laughed grimly. He frowned.
“What are you laughing about? You said you don’t want to talk and I agreed with you.”
“Because it suits your interest. Why would you burden yourself with problems, when you can just go with the flow?Clementine wants to leave. She doesn’t want to talk. Okay then. No worries,” I did a poor imitation of his voice.
