Nick and I froze when we heard my mom's voice behind us. Nick’s gaze flickered behind me as I slowly turned to face her. She was holding two Starbucks coffee mugs in hand as Loco came up to greet her, wagging his tail.
“Uh, no one. No one.” I say, a nervous chuckle slipping from my lips.
“We were just talking about Abigail,” Nick says. Thankfully,ly he realized that now is not the time or place to expose how my stepfather molested me.
“Ya, Abigail. She’s a real pain to be around with the pregnancy hormones and all.”
My mom sets down the coffee cups as she eyes Nick. Then, she slips her purse off her shoulder and sets it on the table.
“Abigail?”
“Ya, she’s a stinker,” I say, and Nick and I laugh nervously. For growing up surrounded by actors and being raised primarily in the acting industry my whole life, I’m indeed sucking at trying to put on a show now.
“Because I could have sworn I heard Nick say, stepfather..” My mom’s gaze beams on me.
“I-I…”
My mom takes a step closer.
“Richard never did anything to you, did he?” My mom’s eyes soften, and for a split second, she’s the woman I used to cry for in the middle of the night. The one I wished would come and save me. The look she’s giving me—it’s warm, familiar, safe. It’s the kind of look that makes little kids believe monsters aren’t real.
And for a split second, I almost break.
My chest tightens so hard I can barely breathe. The truth claws at my throat, begging to be released, but I swallow it back. It hurts. It physically hurts to hold it in.
I turn to Nick, desperate. Say something. Do something. Tell me I’m not crazy for staying silent. But when I catch the look on his face, my stomach drops. He’s frozen too, wide-eyed and unreadable. I don’t know if he’s about to explode or fall apart.
I can’t move. My feet are cement. My lungs are full of smoke.
“Honey?” Her voice cuts through the tension like a blade, and when her hand brushes my arm, it lands like a weight.
I blink. “No. No. Of course not.”
And just like that, I lose another piece of myself.
The lie hits the air and wraps around me like a noose. I want to vomit. I want to scream. But instead, I watch her shoulders fall in relief, and that… that soothes the ache for a second. Because at least she’s not hurt. Not yet.
But why is it always me left bleeding?
“I was going to say, I know you are dramatic but that would be an all time low, if you lied about your stepfather molesting you or some crap like that.”
She laughs.She laughs.
Wiggles a finger like this is some bad sitcom. “You had me going there for a second. You’re a great actress, Melanie. I’ll give you that.”
The laugh echoes in my skull like gunfire. My ears ring. My vision blurs.
Panic whips through me like a storm. Then it’s gone, replaced by something sharper—rage.
“Ya well, I guess I learned from the best.”
She doesn’t even flinch. She’s digging through her purse, totally unfazed.
And that’s when it snaps.
“Richard is by far a way better actor than me, he’s got the whole world fooled, but guess it’s okay since he taught me to do the same.”
There’s a thud—her purse drops to the ground.
