“In her car by Santa Monica Pier. She’s been sitting there since she drove off.”
“Keep following her, and don’t let her see you.”
“Yes, sir.”
Mike hung up and texted Maggie.I’m not going to the ceremony. You should go. Plz come home. I promise I won’t try to talk to you or see you.
Scene73
Maggie
I stared with swollen eyes at the waves. Wild raging waves, thunderous like the thoughts murdering all hope inside me. How had I wound up here again? The same darkness. The same pain. Sadness burst back into my chest as the visions of what I used to believe was the worst day of my life—today was definitely the worst—forced their way into my head. I was only sixteen when I saw the true colors of the narcissistic sociopath called my mother…
When I walked in the house, it was quiet and dark. I jogged up the stairs, taking off my jacket, the sound of the shower starting above me. Shit. I glanced at my watch. Almost one a.m. Dad was on a business trip, and my mother was supposed to be sleeping. Now, Andrea would give me a lecture about being late. Again.
I tiptoed to my room, hoping I’d slip by unseen. However, my parents’ bedroom door was open, and I knew I wouldn’t get away with it.
I passed by the room, but Andrea didn’t come out or call my name. Awesome. All my fears were for nothing. I continued to my room with a smile. Sweet freedom. Then a strange voice stopped my smile, an unfamiliar masculine laugh.
I whirled back to my parent’s room and took one step inside. The light from the hall spilled into the dim bedroom, and the lit bathroom illuminated in clear fashion what no child should have ever seen.
Andrea’s hands were on the counter. Her perfectly manicured nails dug into the tan granite, her head tilted down, a boy’s head at her neck. He was saying something against her hair, gripping her bare butt.
I stepped out of the bedroom, my head pounding, almost throwing up before I reached my own bathroom. The sound of my feet was roaring, yet they didn’t hear, didn’t notice. They were too busy moaning.
Andrea didn’t even bother to close the door or remain quiet. To that extent, she didn’t care about getting caught. She didn’t care about the pain she could cause her family. Her own husband. Her own daughter.
I locked myself up for days after that night, the picture of my naked mother with that boy—he couldn’t have been older than nineteen— haunting me. When Dad returned home and noticed my agony, I couldn’t bring myself to tell him. To hurt him. Even if I had the audacity to bring it up, Andrea would lie, and he’d believe her like always.
I thought about facing my mother. Perhaps knowing she’d been caught would shame Andrea into stopping. But the fear she’d long sowed in me was crippling. Andrea would have turned it on me. She’d have found a way to make it all my fault.
How could I look into Dad’s eyes again, carrying that secret and not being able to tell him, watching him being deceived every moment of his life with that woman? How could I live with that woman under the same roof again?
Torn, weak and desperate, I decided to put an end to that burden and that pain I could no longer stand.
I grabbed a kitchen knife, hid it under my sweater, and waited in my room for everyone to go to sleep. I felt the pain of the steel, felt it stab through my chest, deep, but not deep enough. I should’ve researched this whole thing. I should’ve chosen a better method. My pathetic stab wasn’t strong enough to kill a chicken.
Blood poured out of my chest, then my strength, and I fell. Lying there on the carpet, I could hear Dad’s cries as he stormed through the door. It was unlocked. Another thing I should’ve thought through. Had it been locked, I could’ve bled out and my miserable life would have ended. Instead, I was forced to live with a nasty scar and a nasty secret…
Now, I glanced in the rear mirror, asking myself what I’d done so wrong that I had to relive this horror one more time. Was I destined for misery? Was that why I had been born?
The phone vibrated for the umpteenth time. I got it out to turn it off, but the preview for Mike’s last text caught my attention.Plz come home.Home. What was home? He was. He was everything. Had been. The reason to live and put up with all the shit.
Now, it was all gone.
I took a long breath and started the car.
Scene 74
Mike
“I told you to check in with me every hour. Where the hell is she now?” Mike barked on the phone.
“She’s still at her father’s company, sir,” the driver answered.
“What? It’s eight p.m. on a Sunday. Are they even still open?” Mike’s heart thrashed. “Go check.”
“Yes, sir.”
