She grimaces, turning her nose up as she throws a bag beside my head. “Clean yourself.”
“Why?” I smile wider. “Is the reminder of what your husband did offending you?” Then drop my voice. “It shouldn’t. Daddies look after their princesses, remember?”
Those are her fucking words. Words she said to me when I asked why Ruby was crying and this horrible fucking bitch told me it was because my sister was being silly. A stupid girl who wouldn’t let her daddy look after her.
There’s so many little things my mind buried—in an effort to save me or save them. Now they’re all coming back, I don’t know which ones to bring up or if they’re worth the effort at all when they clearly don’t see an issue with any of their behavior.
I keep spewing my disgust for her and her revolting relationship.
“You should’ve aborted us, threw yourself down the stairs, or fucking drank bleach. Any of those things would have made you a caring mother, but giving birth to us inthisonly proves you’re wicked.”
The prim and proper Lizbeth Leroux who would never deign to show emotion, especially not something as lowly as care, is still alive and well as she lifts her foot, placing the point of her heel on the back of my hand.
I laugh.
It hurts but I laugh.
“Are you trying to hurt me?” My laugh gets louder, forcing my eyes to close as they water. “You’re so fucking pathetic,” I wheeze as her heel punctures my skin. “I’m on the floor, naked and broken, but you can’t even handle the truth.”
Fuck tears. They’re no use; laughter is better when it hurts her. I can see it on her timeless features as she picks her heel out of my hand while I continue laughing.
“I am not pathetic,” she seethes, making me laugh harder.
“Yeah, okay.” I snort. “Keep lying to yourself. Trust me, it won’t last long.”
She lowers to her haunches, crossing her arms on her thighs, a sinister smile framing her venomous words as she whispers, “Do you know what is pathetic, Delilah? Watching you chase that boy, how easy it was for me to put Asher in his place.”
“Shut the fuck up!”
“Did you ever think about why no one ever cared about you? Not me, not your father, not your boyfriend who tricked you, not even your beloved Kane.”
I abruptly sit up, smacking her in the face as I do. She stares at me wide-eyed, a drop of blood sitting on the corner of her lips before she slowly brushes it with her thumb.
“Never say his name,” I grit, my breathing ragged.
“You are pathetic,” she snarls. “That love you’ve convinced yourself of is too. It’s not real when you are unlovable. Even as a child, you were so desperate for someone to want you,to really want you, you allowed Asher to convince you he did. Only in the end, he would sit at our table and regale us with how easy it was for him to control you.”
“Because of you!” I throw my arm out. “You never helped me. All you had to do was get out of my way, stop him coming intothe house. You didn’t even need to take my side. All you had to do was let me do it on my own.”
“Why would I do that?” she asks with a small crease between her brows, like stopping her child being hurt is absurd. “We moved for you to meet Asher, so why would we undo all our work by allowing you to believe you had control over anything?”
“Why? Why did you do all of this? Why did you sacrifice your children? Didn’t it hurt you to know Ruby and Scarlet wanted nothing to do with you? Didn’t that make you pause, reflect that you have one child left, so maybe, if you changed, you could keep me in your life?”
“Children are a means for power,” she answers coolly as she stands, wiping down the skirt of her dress. “Ruby isn’t the savior you think she is. She left our family to form another for power. She’s more like us than you think she is.”
“And what about Scarlet?”
“Scarlet?” she scoffs. “If you want to see the definition of pathetic, it is her. You may not believe I care about my children, but I have watched over all of you. You working in adiner,”her face contorts, the snobby bitch, “and Scarlet living the life of a socialite. Ruby was different. She’s like me. She knew to keep herself hidden until your wedding.”
“That wasn’t a wedding.” I stare at her, meeting her eyes. “It was rape—like what your husband did in this very room.”
“Don’t be dramatic.” She rolls her eyes, walking out of the room, locking the door behind her.
Some stupid, hopeful part of me expects there to be something useful inside the bag. A weapon or a note, anything to prove there is at least a miniscule amount of care in my mother’s warped mind. When I unzip it, only clothes and a toiletry bag stare back at me.
I’m not given running water to wash their filth off me but at least she gave me wet wipes. Fuck. I laugh again as I pull a wad of wipes out of the plastic opening.
“Here you go, my lovely daughter. Don’t let anyone know your daddy raped you. That wouldn’t be very ladylike, would it?”
