For her—and me—it is.
She looks at my father, complaining, “I told you she still wouldn’t be using that gym membership. I might as well throw the money down the toilet.”
Only the scrape of cutlery against plates breaks the silence. My cheeks feel hot, but I don’t take my eyes off her, refusing to let her see that she’s getting to me. Under the table, Barrett’s hand lands on my knee, squeezing.
“Could be because she never asked for a gym membership,” he mutters under his breath, and my mother shoots him a nasty glare.
“Agatha, let’s do this later,” my father rumbles out, his focus on his plate. He’s not actually worried about what his wife is saying, which makes me think that more than a small part of him agrees.
My head goes fuzzy, my tongue feeling too big for my mouth, but the memory that sticks out in crystal clear focus is standing in front of Bliss and calling her out on her shit.
It’s a thought that cuts through the noise of static in my head, and I blink rapidly, like I’m coming out of a dream.
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘When someone gets tossed aside’?”
My mother purses her lips, eyebrows arched. “Well, I know you told me that you left him. Let’s be honest…we’re all aware that you were just trying to save face.” She tuts her tongue, lifting her wine to her mouth and delicately sipping it. “We all knew when you first got together with that boy that it wouldn’t last. He’s certainly out of your league.”
“Charlie broke up with Dillon,” Barrett asserts, his expression dark with anger.
My mother barely flicks him a look. “It is actually for the best. I ran into him the other day, and the boy is…Well,uncouth, for lack of a better word.” She presses a hand to her chest, eyes wide with shock. “The way he spoke to me was just appalling. He wouldn’t fit in with our family, even if you could hold onto him.”
I’m not sure I want to know, but I ask anyway, “How did he speak to you?”
There’s a slight hesitation, but my mother’s nothing if not arrogant, especially when it comes to believing her own delusional truth. “He called me a bad mother.” She sniffs. “He had the audacity to blame me for your issues, as if it’s my fault you’re—” My mother flaps a hand in my direction, and poisonous rage swirls through my gut.
Barrett snorts, slumping in his seat. “The boy’s learning,” he grunts out, earning another glare.
My father sighs, setting his cutlery down on his empty plate. “Agatha, we talked about this. The boy clearly isn’t in his right mind. He was just talking nonsense.”
A laugh splutters out of me. “Nonsense? He was talkingnonsense?” I echo, shoving my chair back and standing. “Did he tell you that I was the one who left? Did he tell you that he misses me and wants me back? Did he tell you that you’re a horrible person and an even worse mother?” I look at my father, finding him glaring at me sternly, silently telling me to shut up and sit down—the same expression he’s leveled on me my entire life. “Whatwould he have said to you, I wonder? If you’d been there too.”
“Charlotte, sit down and be quiet,” my mother hisses. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“There’s only one person embarrassing themselves here, and it isn’t me,” I sneer. “You’re sitting here, talking about my body like it’s normal to discuss how fat a person is at the dinner table! And let’s not pretend this is a new behavior.”
My aunt and uncle are starting to look uncomfortable at the other end of the table, sharing uneasy glances. Kayla is nodding along, and then she adds in, “It’s really weird, Auntie Aggie. Imagine if I just started calling you bony? I mean, you kind of resemble a skeleton, and it’s freaky as hell. But I’d never think of saying it.”
“Kayla!” My aunt hisses in a horrified whisper, just as Barrett barks out a loud laugh.
“Charlotte,” my father intones, “you will sit down and finish your meal. That’s enough churlish behavior for one night.”
I stare down at him, mouth parting in shock. “So it’s okay for your wife to criticize my appearance, talk about me needing to go to the gym, discuss how the man I loved was lowering his standards andsettlingwith me, and that it was for the best that we broke up. But if I tell her that none of that is okay…That’syour line in the sand?”
“Charlotte,” he says my name sharply.
My heart races, adrenaline shooting through my body. My hands are shaking, and I clasp them tightly at my waist. “I’ve made excuses for the two of you my entire life,” I say, almost to myself. “I’ve told myself that you talk to me like that because you love me, that you want the best for me. But it’s not true, is it? I’m just an accessory to you. One to get out and show off. Except I wasn’t what youimagined a child of yours should look like, but you couldn’t exactly return me.” I swallow thickly as angry tears spring to my eyes, hating that they’ve pushed me to make this choice.
“I’m your only child,” I whisper, eyes bouncing between their unforgiving expressions, neither of them moved by my emotional display. “Someone you’re supposed to love unconditionally.”
Neither of them says a word. The feeling of never being good enough rides me hard, knowing the only people in the world who are supposed to love me…don’t.
I shake my head, stepping away from the table. “Come on, Barrett. I’m done. You were right. None of this is worth it, blood or not.”
My mother’s chair screeches against the hardwood floor as she stands up, pointing a shaking finger at me. “You walk out that door, don’t you bother coming back!” she yells, her eyes flashing as she loses her composure, finally sensing she’s losing control of me. “You walk out, and you’re no daughter of ours! You’ll be completely cut off.”
I pause in the doorway, staring at her. “Considering how you treat your daughter, that’s not any kind of threat.”
I turn and walk away, my chest feeling lighter as I step out of the house, Barrett on my heels. Outside, he places a hand on the low of my back, herding me toward his truck.
