Her smack comes out of leftfield, knocking me to the ground with enough force to rattle my bones. I stay there for a moment, collecting my bearings before standing on shaking feet.
The tears no longer fall from her eyes. Instead, she glares at me with the same dead expression as my father. Like she doesn’t know who I am.
I didn’t let it hurt with my dad, but my mom? It’s gutting me, this hatred I feel coming off her in waves.
Rocking back on my heels, I stumble away from both of them. My feet take me toward the stairs, but her cold, unsympathetic tone stops me before I can take another step.
“Give me your phone, Scarlett, along with your laptop and all your passwords.”
“Mom, I-”
“I don’t give a shit how old you are. You live in my fucking house. I bought you those things!” she yells, voice breaking a bit at the end before returning to its icy originality. “Now, give them to me now and stay the fuck in your room. I don’t want to see you for the rest of the night.”
It isn’t hard to hand over my belongings. There’s nothing on them anyway. And unless my father decides to go through the trouble to obtain my phone records, they won’t see anything damning. But still, it breaks something between us.
I don’t know if my relationship with my parents will ever be the same after this. I could only hope for a full recovery. But if not, I only need Theodore anyway.
Noah
For the first time since Scarlett has been born, we eat dinner alone, just the two of us, my wife and me. There’s no talk at the dining table… there’s hardly any eating. Our appetites vanished the moment the truth came out. That appears to be the case for Scarlett as well, since the food we left outside her door is still untouched.
At seven in the evening, we decide to turn it in for the night. There’s no point in staying up when the house is full of silence. Tomorrow is a new day. Maybe things will look easier in the light.
After checking to see if Scarlett was still in the room, Etta and I head off to sleep.
We lie there, shoulder to shoulder, staring up at the ceiling while neither of us utters a sound. The weight of this evening still sits upon our chests, keeping us awake.
“I should have known,” Etta mumbles, turning on her side to face me. In the darkness, I can make out the film of tears glossing over her eyes.
Wiping them away with the pad of my thumb, I reassure, “No, babe. This isn’t on you.”
She isn’t accepting any of my comforts, batting off my hand before sitting up in bed and switching on the bedside lamp.
“No! Noah, you don’t understand…Ishouldhaveknown!”
“Why? Why do you say that?”
Clearing her throat, she glances down at her lap before admitting, “When we first moved here, she was so behind in her class that she needed tutoring. The day I picked her up, there was something different about her. I could see she was different, but I just figured it was simply because she had a crush on the teacher walking beside her… I should have known.”
Taking her in my arms, I soothe away her guilt. “You couldn’t have known, sweetheart. This isn’t your fault.”
After a minute of quiet sniffles, she says, “She lied to you… this has been going on for much longer than a couple of weeks.”
I assumed the same. Scarlett usually isn’t one to lose her head over a small fling. But then again, she isn’t one to make mistakes like these either. I don’t care what she said about this being her choice. Ellis manipulated my daughter's mind… tainted her pure soul. I’ll never forgive him for that, either of them.
“Noah,” my wife says softly, gathering my attention from the trenches of my mind. When I turn to look at her, I’m overwhelmed by the sensation of dread oozing from her dilated pupils.
“What is it?” I ask, unable to handle her piercing silence.
Whatever it is, it has her throat in a knot, choking her with the words that wish to escape. Finally, after the dreadful quiet, she whispers, “Do you think she had something to do with that woman’s disappearance?”
My instant reaction is anger. “How could you say something like that?! No! Of course she didn’t have anything to do with this! This was all him! I know it!” But the more I think about it, the more plausible it becomes.
There is no one quite as brilliant or driven as my daughter. When she wants something, nothing and no one is stopping her from achieving it. It becomes almost like a game to her, something to win.
Something to own.
If what she said earlier is true, then she wouldn’t have let Elizabeth Ellis come in between her and Theodore. She wouldn’t have given up something she deemed as hers. It’s always been an issue of Scarlett’s.
