Page 19 of Use Me Up

“I know, he probably sweet-talked you into letting him say it, and I know he can be charming when he wants to be, and I know you thought he hung the moon when you were thirteen, but he’s different now. Ever since he got back from wherever the hell he was, there’s something about him. He’s not that innocent little boy from the Polloi compound anymore.”

“I don’t know if he was really ever innocent.”

“This awful lie about you—”

“It’s not a lie.” Oh, fuck, I just said that to her, didn’t I?

My mother is quiet on the other end of the phone. When she speaks, she says, “I’m going to come over. I want to come over and see you. This is a big thing, a mother-daughter thing—”

“No, Mom, this is not a mother-daughter thing. No. It absolutely isn’t.”

She thinks about it. “Okay, you’re right. But this is worrying, actually, sweetie. This isn’t like you. So, I’m coming over.”

“I’m not there,” I say.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at his house.”

“Oh, hell,” says my mom. “Is he there right now?”

“Yeah?”

“Like, close? Is he listening to you?”

“Yeah.”

“Put me on speaker.”

I slowly take the phone away from my ear. I put the phone on speaker.

“Hannah?” comes my mom’s voice.

“Yeah, Mom, you’re on speaker,” I say.

“Ellis, can you hear me?” she says.

“Joni, this isn’t really about you,” he says. He calls my mom by her first name, because years ago, she told him to. I bet now she wishes he called her ma’am or senator or something, though.

“If it is about my daughter, it is about me,” says my mom. “If it’s about my son, it’s about me. Now, I talked to Andrew, and he says that what he thinks you are trying to do is to take something of his, the way you feel he took something of yours. And even though you know that he loves and cherishes Calliope, and that she has never belonged to you, or to anyone except herself, you are going to try to defile whatever it is of Andrew’s you have taken.”

“Look, whatever it is he—”

“I’m talking,” interrupts my mother. “You will not do that to my daughter.”

Ellis smirks.

“What was that?” said my mother.

“Oh, are you done talking?” says Ellis. “Joni?”

My mother sighs heavily. “What happened to you, Ellis, really what happened?”

“You know, you have no idea all of the things that happened to me when I was growing up,” he says. “And as for your daughter, I think you’re too late.”

“What do you mean by that?” my mother says.

“I mean, I’ve already defiled her.” And he yanks the phone out of my hand and hangs up on her.