16
Faith
Jester’s day has got to be going better than mine.
Yes, I’m aware I’m dramatic.
No, I don’t care.
Visiting my mother was a terrible idea. Nothing good ever comes from us being in a room together. Add my sister and it makes for a volatile combination. But here we are. The three of us, in my mother’s kitchen. What began as a pleasant conversation over coffee devolved into a chastisement about my shitty life choices.
What else is new?
Brianna, the golden child, who has never done a thing wrong in her entire thirty years of life, is sitting across from me, basking in our mother’s constant approval. Perched on the chair next to her favorite daughter, Olivia Decker glares daggers at me. She’s ranting about me to Brianna as if I’m not in the room. About how she’s disappointed in me for coming back to Mayhem. How I threw my life away. And how it stems back to my “self-destructive nature.”
As if her low opinion of me isn’t shredding me.
This here is what I like to call a defining moment. I can let her low opinion continue to hurt me. Allow her ridicule to wear me down. Or I can shake it off and finally accept that no matter what I do, where I live, who I’m with, or who I am, I’ll never be good enough. Smart enough. Successful enough.
I’ll never be my sister.
I’m second best. The rebellious one. The wild child.
My fist colliding with the table ends my mother’s tirade mid-sentence. Mayhem’s deceptively soft-spoken librarian blinks at me, and when she opens her mouth to say more, I cut her off. “No, you’re done.” My voice is cold. Detached. As if I’m addressing a stranger.
“Don’t you dare take that tone with me.”
“Here we go,” Brianna mutters.
“I sat here for the last fifteen minutes while you both ripped me an asshole for the sin of wanting to live my life. So, yes, you bet here we fucking go.” I rarely curse in front of my mother, but my temper shot from zero to nuclear while listening to them talk about me.
“Always with the theatrics,” my mother laments.
I roll my eyes. “I’m sorry, I forgot. Only you get to be dramatic.”
My mother folds her hands on the table, her eyes as cold as a winter frost. “I’m tired of being the bad guy in your story, Faith.”
I lift a brow at the remark. “Then stop acting like one and start respecting me the same way you respect Brianna.”
When she unlaces her fingers and places her hand on my sister’s arm, I swallow a mouthful of bile. Wow. Never thought such a small gesture could hit so hard. “Maybe if you made better choices, you’d have my respect.”
I throw up my hands. “What more do you want from me? I went to Saunders Hall, same as Brianna. Got a shiny degree and everything. But unlike her, I’m actually using the damn thing.” I jab a finger at my mother, my heart hardening with every word that tumbles out of my mouth. “You never even asked why I left Davenport Trading or what I’m doing now. And even if you knew, you wouldn’t give a shit because it doesn’t include me marrying a man who could stick me in a big house and put a kid in me and treat me like a fucking trophy.”
“Watch your mouth,” my mother warns me.
“That’s not fair,” Brianna cries.
I lean forward and nail my sister with a glare. “Fair, Bri? There’s nothing fair about how we were raised. She hates me because I’m not you. But I’d never trade my soul for a big bank account and a closet full of designer clothes. I can’t be happy sipping mimosas. Or running the parent-teacher association. And I for damn sure will never pretend to love a man who brags how he ‘married the best,’ which we both know is code for he bought himself a pretty wife who looks the other way every time he bangs his receptionist. But hey, if your choices make you happy, more power to you, sis. The thing is, I don’t judge you for them. But you and mom? You judge the hell out of me. So take that whole fair thing and shove it up your ass.”
My mother jumps up, nearly upturning her chair. “You think I don’t know you’re back with that man?”
“It’s not a secret,” I practically scream in her face.
She was bound to find out. Mayhem is tiny, and we haven’t been hiding the fact that we’re a couple again.
Brianna’s jaw literally drops. Her mouth hangs open for a few seconds before she snaps it shut. Then she shakes her head. “Good God. You didnotget back with Luke Hayden, Faith. Even you’re not that stupid.”
“Well, apparently, I am that stupid.”
