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I look at my mother, who gapes at me, her perfect face flushed with her embarrassment.
I want her more than embarrassed. I want her mortified and absolutely ruined.
"And you," I hiss at her, "you're pathetic. I don't want to see you ever again. You bullied me when I was three years old, and you still bully me now. What the fuck is actually wrong with you?"
"Language, Ms. Bardot!" Headmistress nearly shrieks as she presses a button on her phone and barks, "I need two guards immediately!"
My father gawks at me as the guards arrive and quickly open the door to the room.
"Avery," my father begins, stepping forward. He reaches for me, but I don't want him to touch me. "I love you."
"No, you don't!" I nearly scream, the words shredding my throat and cutting me apart from the inside. "Maybe you think you do, but you don't. I can assure you of that."
I reach for my mother and pinch her sideshard. She yelps and tries to get away, but I don't let her.
"How's it feel?" I ask her, grabbing her hard enough to bruise. "How's it feel, piggy?! Huh, piggy? Huh?"
She slaps me. It happens in the blink of an eye, and I feel a blossom of nettles across my cheek before I laugh in her face.
"Restrain her!" Headmistress yells at the guards.
"I knew I was right about you!" my mother sneers. "You always were a disgusting pig. Do you know much money your father and I pay . . ."
"I don't care!" I shout, raising my hands. "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you! And you're too self-absorbed to even admit that. I'm just a casualty in the mind game you've been playing with yourself for years, Mother."
"Oh my poor sweet piggy," she coos, sarcasm dripping like venom from her lips. "Your life is so hard!"
She pretends to wipe her tears away.
"Megan!" my father snaps, his tone severe.
"Like you care!" I snap back at him. "You don't give a fuck about me. You won't even be out the door before you've forgiven her. You will never ever see her for what she is!"
"And what is that?" my mother demands.
"A bully, and the worst kind too, the kind who does it to their own child. You're pathetic. The both of you are. You deserve each other."
"Enough!" Headmistress says, bringing her fist down to her table. Thebangis loud in her large office, echoing in the space.
Her gaze cuts to my father. "You see what we've been dealing with? Now I'm afraid I have to ask you to leave so we can do our jobs, Mr. and Mrs. Bardot."
"Of course," my mother says, grabbing my father by the elbow and steering him toward the door.
My father nods and follows numbly behind her.
And isn't that fucked up too?
That they'll go on as business as usual when they leave and forget my words, but I can't leave and I can never forget what they've done to me.
24
GABE
Ilearned at a young age as I watched my grandfather light his fireplace that the flames had the ability to burn away all the bad feelings I kept bottled up inside of me. I sat and watched that fire for hours as my grandmother tried and failed at ushering me to bed. I was transfixed, and it was an absolute miracle I didn't stick my hand into the pretty orange and yellow tendrils crackling in front of me and try to capture them in the palm of my hand.
Even before I knew the meaning of the word, I didn't feel my father's disgust when I looked at the flames.
I wasn't the stupid son who couldn't do anything right.
