The mental image of him and my mother together in one room, speaking about me… it’s too much.
“Fuck you.” I lunge from the bed and grab for my clothes.
He comes after me, and I yank out my knife and aim straight for his heart.
“Come any closer, and I won’t miss this time.”
“Scarlett.”
He is sad and broken and all the things I knew he would be. But he did this to himself, and I’m out of generosity as far as Rory is concerned. As far as anyone is concerned.
“You should have stayed away,” I tell him again.
“Don’t leave.”
“I told you,” I say. “I fucking warned you. And now, you better watch your back, Rory.”
Thirty
Scarlett
The fault is notin our stars, but our hearts- those immortal instruments which beat on in spite of our most valiant efforts to destroy them.
Idon’t knowwhy I’m here.
Nothing has changed.
My mother is shopping and day drinking, the same as she does every Wednesday afternoon. I watch her through the window, perfectly coiffed and utterly miserable.
She alone could keep Botox in business.
Because she doesn’t want to give away anything real or true.
She’s always been this way. She was born miserable, and she will die miserable.
But she will take that secret to her grave.
All that matters is how her life looks on the outside.
People don’t care that there’s a feud between the employees in the back when there are glamorous objects up in the store window. My mother keeps her storefront stocked with glamorous things.
Pretty words and practiced topics of conversation. Conservative but fashionable clothing and a face that is immune to time and gravity.
She fell in line like she was supposed to. The way an Albright was supposed to. She married into old money, and she had a baby, like she was supposed to. That was when things went terribly wrong for her.
I never could fall in line, the way that I was supposed to.
I had so much privilege it was nauseating. I had been blessed with everything. There was one critical problem with the whole situation. I couldn’t play the role I had been cast in. I gave it a fair effort, but I wasn’t her. She could never understand that.
She fought for what she had her whole life. She fought tooth and nail for it.
She never knew any other way.
And all I ever did was disappoint her.
I watch her drink her thousand-dollar champagne through the window, and for the first time in my life, I feel truly sorry.
I feel sorry for her.
