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Reed sipped at his beer, not taking his eyes off me as I attempted to avoid having to discuss my mother and her narcissistic tendencies. But I could already tell he wasn’t about to let it go.
I let out a heavy sigh. “My parents divorced when I was finishing middle school. It was right when my mom had started to become a household name, and she was signing contracts left, right, and center. So my brother and I moved in with my dad because Mom was away so much, but I was really happy for her getting to follow her dreams. We would see her maybe one week or weekend a month, but then my dad was in a car accident when I was about fifteen, and he died, so my brother and I had to move in with my mom full time.”
“Dynamics changed.”
I scoffed. “That’s an understatement. Suddenly, she had two kids to parade around like dolls, and it just sent me straight off the rails.” I took a sip of my drink. “Then I pushed her boundaries until one day…” she pauses then continues, “… they broke.”
“You couldn’t help yourself, could you?” my mother accused, climbing into the back seat of the town car.
“Couldn’t help myself?” I echoed, letting out a horrified laugh. “You have got to be joking.”
She refused to look at me as the driver pulled us away from the police station, skillfully avoiding several paparazzi who had leaped in front of the vehicle to get those final few shots before we could escape.
“You could have walked away,” she hissed, the heat of her anger swirling in the air like a thick smog, making it difficult to breathe. “Instead, you decided to make a scene.”
She wasn’t wrong about that part.
I’d just been bonded out of jail less than twenty minutes ago, and I’d already had almost ten messages from friends about the shaky cell phone video the news stations were playing on repeat. It had taken me all but a few seconds to find it myself. The quality was questionable but the content clear as day.
Me in handcuffs.
Two police officers marching me down the front steps of a Dartmouth College frat house.
All while a hundred or more drunk college students stood watching on, some in horror, others in pure amusement.
Even at two in the morning, there had already been reporters everywhere screaming questions at me, their cameras flashing, desperate for a soundbite or a scandal. And while I’d somehow managed to keep my mouth shut—an achievement of its own—my silence wouldn’t matter much.
The press would get their scoop soon enough, and I would gamble my inheritance on it being a load of shit. It would be some spectacularly spun story that would take the heat off me and probably pin it on someone else.
That’s what publicists were for.
To sweep the rotten shit under the rug.
And my family had the best one in the city because we had the most shit to hide.
My brother’s stint in the psych ward.
My parents’ hateful divorce.
All hot piles of dog shit my mother paid someone to sprinkle with glitter so she wouldn’t lose contracts, sponsorships, or movie deals.
And I just couldn’t wait to see what kind of fucked-up lies I would read in the paper tomorrow to explain why award-winning actress Helen Maxwell’s out-of-control daughter sent a Dartmouth College senior to the hospital with several broken bones. Not to mention how they were going to explain away the reason I wasn’t being charged for attacking the sick bastard with a baseball bat.
Ironically, it would be the same reason why he wouldn’t be charged for drugging and raping my best friend only a few minutes before.
Because money and status spoke louder than pain.
“This isn’t about me trying to make you look bad, Mother,” I snapped, turning my body to face her while she continued to stare straight ahead, her hands clenched tightly in her lap. “This is about Maddie and what that bastard did to her.”
She waved her hand in the air and rolled her eyes as if she was trying to waft away the truth. “Don’t be dramatic, Valen. They’re young boys. They get a little too… excited when they’re drunk.”
“Herapedher.”
A sharp, narrowed glare was suddenly snapped toward me. “That is not a word you need to be throwing out into the world. Saying shit like that is how you get sued.” She pointed her finger at my chest, her long, sparkly nail feeling like it might slice right through me if I wasn’t careful with my words. “I will find out who this boy is, we will meet with him and his parents, and then you will beg for their forgiveness.”
I scoffed. “His parents? He needs Mommy and Daddy to hold his wittle hand while the scary girl says she’s sowwy?”
“Youwillapologize to him and his family,” she ordered through gritted teeth. “You willnotruin everything I have created.”
