The locks of hair he fumbled with dropped to his forehead to frame his irritated scowl as he shot her one last glare of warning. He then turned his back to her to go up the stairs to the apartment.
I briefly debated making my way for the door and taking my chances with the dark alleyway I noticed when we pulled up.
“No argument on my end.” She charged for the stairs but stopped short of following him to the apartment. “Welcome home! And enjoy the couch, dumbass.”
The door slammed behind him as a response.
Olivia whipped around from the stairwell to face me, causing the life to drain from my already pained face.
“You’re fucking him, aren’t you?” she asked bluntly.
I opened my mouth to speak, though not entirely sure how I could answer such an unexpected question. She stopped me with a spine-chilling laugh. “Who am I kidding? You look too cute and broken to fuck. You’re his charity case, and he’ll leave you, too. You’ll think things are going great, but he’ll get bored or find you at fault forsomething. You’re the precious Steven he could never get back. You’re a little brother.”
As predicted, I was a punching bag, and I had no idea how to pursue our battle. Anything I could’ve said next might’ve ended with her pulling my hair and scratching my face beforeshe pulled out a switchblade and asked which finger I wanted to lose first.
Her lips curled in a sinister smirk. The amusement of my hesitation was more ammo. “Figures. Should’ve known he’d pick up a quiet one next. Less bite when he leaves you without a warning, too. Sit down and don’t get attached, hun.”
With her final parting words to me, she was heading up the stairs. She walked away thinking the battle was won, but I still wasn’t sure what was going on. All I knew was it was going to be a long night.
Chapter 19 – Camille
It was a tense and uncomfortable dinner that night. Mystique ended up ordering pizza because “It’s fast, cheap, and convenient! We’ll have more time to talk!” but Erich confirmed she wasn’t one of the greatest cooks he’d ever encountered.
I could barely take more than a few bites. My head was pounding, causing every heartbeat to turn my vision into a rave. There was every possibility I had a concussion from the accident… or my read on Mystique was wrong, and she took matters into her own hands to eliminate me from the dinner table with her witch’s brew.
I wasn’t sure how dinner and catching up was supposed to be relaxing as a bystander in the throes of psychological warfare. I had already taken enough shots; I was not prepared to take another bullet for Erich and had decided responding to Olivia’s attitude was something he would need to do on his own.
“So, Camille,” Mystique started. The kitchen was more cramped than downstairs. The room was a perfect square, with two walls of countertops hugging the off-white floral wallpaper that was starting to peel from the ceiling. There were worn wood cabinets above the countertops, as well as a permanently stained stove, a dripping sink to fuel my agonizing discomfort, and a fridge. We were seated around a small, circular kitchen table in one corner of the kitchen. As I tried to stop myself from drowning in the tension, the walls and shelves felt like they were about to fall on top of me with how close everything was. “Where are you from?”
Erich had been resting his cheek in his hand, arm propped on the table. Olivia was unusually chipper and bubbly compared to a few moments earlier. Because the table was so small, Erich sat between Olivia and me, with Mystique between Olivia and me.
“Mississippi,” I answered. Mystique was only trying to be friendly. She didn’t know anything about my time there, so I quickly brushed aside my willingness to forget. She already knew I had issues, and she made that clear when we met.
There was shuffling under the table, and Erich’s hand dropped from his face in response. His side-eye at Olivia was piercing as he crossed his arms on the table.
Olivia’s grin spread from ear to ear in response, her white teeth sparkling in the corner of my migraine-induced, off-kilter vision.
Mystique’s smile was soft and friendly as she focused on me. She was blind to the movement under the table and the weaponized glares between her two adult children. “How wonderful. I grew up in Louisiana,” she explained. “The streets of New Orleans, matter of fact. Came here young to work and share my abilities with the city and haven’t left since.”
I gave her a small smile—the one I’d perfected for those types of occasions—as I attempted to take another minuscule bite of my slice of pizza. Erich and Olivia were already on their third. I didn’t know how they could eat so much and so fast while also communicating through dirty looks and slipped middle fingers.
Olivia hid her mouth behind her hand, and a small giggle escaped through her slender, manicured fingers.
Erich stood up quickly, pushing the faded wooden chair back with enough force to send it into the wall that was painfully close to our cramped meeting area. He left the kitchen, and seconds later, the door to the bathroom shut forcefully behind him.
“Is everything alright?” Mystique asked, her attention moving to her other side where Olivia sat with her right leg over her left.
“Never better.” Olivia’s lively grin glowed. She lifted the slice of pizza to her mouth and took another bite, her eyes meeting mine. She winked, and I resisted the urge to follow him into the bathroom to vomit out of sheer stress. What was she capable of? Would I not wake up in the morning?
Erich returned from the bathroom and flipped the chair back from the wall to the table, moving it closer to my side and further from Olivia. Olivia’s lips turned into a dissatisfied frown as she quietly scooted her chair closer to Erich in response. My field of vision was still pounding with each heartbeat as I saw her left hand move up his jeans, to the zipper on his pants, fingering the small metal pull and scratching the closed track…
Mystique was speaking, but her words went through me. I was laser-focused on Erich and Olivia. Everything was moving like we were on a ship in rough seas, and if it were my job to break up whatever was happening between the two, I didn’t know how I could possibly handle that responsibility. The lack ofresponse to move Olivia’s hand away was agonizing torture, and despite the stiffness of his feet planted on the floor, I began to wonder how much of this was unwanted.
It was possible he had given up letting her get under his skin altogether.
He either knew how to play the game to get her to quit, or he wanted it and wasn’t going to stop her. I tried to focus on Mystique instead, my eyes drifting past the moving room to the woman on my right. I wanted to scream and throw the table across the house. Either as a means to run away or to voice frustration and disgust, I wasn’t yet sure.
“Olivia and Erich will have to show you around the city tomorrow. There’s so much to see!” Mystique went on. Her empty paper plate sat on the table in front of her as she continued being a welcoming host with her conversation. Her eyes lit up with enthusiasm as we heard the commotion of the city that never slept outside the open windows and in the streets. “You two better bring her to that ice cream shop on the corner you used to go to all the time. I remember you’d both sweep the floor downstairs to get an allowance to go…”
