Page 43 of Take What Hurts

Elliott watched the woman narrow her eyes further in scrutiny as they flitted to the open file on the table and back, taking in Elliott’s sweatpants and hoodie and her ruffled hair. Elliott tried not to wither under her glare. The woman huffed out a snort. “Elliott Jackson,” she drawled, that same eyebrow swooping up on her forehead, before she rolled her eyes. “I’m nobody the likes of you needs to know about.” She turned back to Mackenzie. “What are you doing hanging around with this?” She waved a hand in Elliott’s direction. “It’s beneath you.”

Elliott’s face was a furnace, and, despite the confidence she was trying to put out into this situation, her eyes dropped to examine the bleeding muscle of her heart where it settled at her feet. There was another beat of silence, and Elliott wondered if she should leave, before⁠—

“Mother.” And Elliott’s head snapped back up quick enough to give her whiplash. Because Mackenzie had spat the word like it was poison. Elliott suppressed the noise of joyful relief that wanted to escape, because there she was. Her Mackenzie. Shoulders back and wide, spine a hardened rod. And eyes blazing white fire hot enough to scorch the earth. “That’s enough. You are in my house, and I won’t have you insulting my friends. You need to leave, and we will discuss the money later.”

Her mother took another step toward Mackenzie, but this time Mackenzie didn’t shrink away. She stood tall and firm, and pride railed through Elliott as she watched Mackenzie stand up to her mother—something Elliott suspected, to date, was a foreign concept. “That is not how this works.”

The tic in Mackenzie’s cheek, barely noticeable but there, flickered. The only tell that her confidence was wavering. Despite that, Mackenzie still didn’t shrink. “Yeah, well, perhaps some things need to change.” Mackenzie pulled the door open and motioned with her hand for her mother to leave. “I have asked you to leave. If you choose not to, I will contact the police and have you removed.”

Elliott watched in mild fascination as Mackenzie’s mother’s face went from a normal shade of pale to a glowing red. Elliott went to the table, collected the Birken bag, and handed it to her where she stood. The woman’s blue eyes glowed with rage, and Elliott took a quick step away from her. She turned back to face Mackenzie and stepped as close as it was possible to be without touching her.

“I hope you know how much you are going to regret what you’ve just done here today.” She stepped around Mackenzie and out the door.

And Mackenzie slammed it behind her.

Elliott leaned back against the dining table, eyes on Mackenzie, who stood motionless, with her hand flat on the back of the door, her head hanging low and hair curtaining around her face.

“Are you okay?” Elliott heard the tentativeness in her own voice, and Mackenzie stood up and turned to face her from across the room.

She managed a wan smile and lifted her head toward the door behind Elliott, which led to a covered balcony overlooking downtown Seattle. Once they were both seated on the love seat outside, covered in a soft blanket, overlooking Seattle’s sparkling skyline, Mackenzie spoke softly. “I’m sorry about that. She’s—” And Mackenzie paused, jaw clenching while she fished for a word to describe her mother. Elliott could think of a few. “Well. You saw. She’s difficult. I—I had hoped you wouldn’t ever have to… well. I’d hoped you’d never have to see that whole”—Mackenzie’s hands gesticulated wildly in front of her—“that whole thing. Her. Me in front of her. And the fact she knows Anna is a—it’s a curveball I wasn’t expecting.”

Elliott was silent, and Mackenzie stiffened beside her. In the silence, Elliott deliberated, oscillating between speaking her mind exactly and tempering what she so badly wanted to say. That her mother was a bitch. That Elliott was concerned about Mackenzie. Ask why there was talk of money and payment. Instead, Elliott settled on: “Difficult?” The red-hot rage reared its head and threatened to work its way out of her. Her fingers started to scrape at the skin on her thumb, which was red and raw and had been bleeding on and off for days. Mackenzie’s eyes dropped to follow the motion, and Elliott covered the bleeding mess with her other hand. The rancid feeling of old shame rose up from her toes, and she flushed as Mackenzie softened and took Elliott’s hand in hers. Stilling it. Immediate calm quieted the roiling in her body.

“It’s okay, Elliott. You don’t need to hide that from me.”

Elliott shrugged. “It’s not something I’m proud of. I try to stop. Have tried,” she corrected herself, “but it’s hard when I feel stressed or upset. Just kind of… happens.”

Mackenzie squeezed her hand again but seemed to understand Elliott, well… didn’t have anything more to say about it. It just was what it was. Fidgets worked, but she had to have one on her all the time, which clients didn’t overly appreciate or understand. And she wasn’t a ring person. They irritated her hands and were uncomfortable. She’d thought about a silicone ring—something she could fiddle with. But anytime she went to buy one she couldn’t work out which size to buy, and it was all too overwhelming to work out, so she just… didn’t.

Mackenzie’s ready acceptance—of a habit that disgusted Elliott herself—dragged her out of the spiral of self-loathing that often accompanied others taking notice of what Elliott assumed was an anxiety response.

After another beat, Mackenzie spoke, moving them on from the topic that made Elliott squirm. “Yes, my mother is difficult. My father left us both when I was a baby. Like high and dry. He was the love of her life, and he left because—” A choked sound cut off the rest of the words. Elliott squeezed her hand but stayed silent, waiting. Mackenzie cleared her throat. “Well, he left because my mom refused to ‘take care of it.’” Elliott’s stomach lurched and words rose in her throat, but before they had a chance to escape, Mackenzie continued. “He never wanted kids. Neither did she. But I guess…” She shrugged. “I guess there was something in there deep down that made her believe going through with it—with me—was the right thing.” She huffed out a mirthless laugh. “And she struggled in a lot of ways, I think. Financially, emotionally.”

Mackenzie sounded almost thoughtful as she tried, Elliott figured, to justify to herself why her mother was the way she was. “I think she tried, initially,” Mackenzie continued. “I remember some holidays, and I know I mentioned a ski trip to you. I always went to good schools and had nice clothes. She was never really… I don’t know—warm, I guess? And I was always aware I should feel lucky to even exist.” Her gorgeous pink lips pulled down at the edges, and her face collapsed in on itself. Just a little bit. Just enough. And Elliott’s heart clenched with it.

“When I started college, that’s when it all stopped. Suddenly I was eighteen and an adult, and it was like her job was done and I was just another person in the world. She drove me to the dorms, and on the way there she told me all about how life was going to look, basically. Said that I needed to contribute towards my high school education and the bills she’d paid while I’d been living under her roof.” The indignation rose in Elliott with the renewed rage, but before she could speak, Mackenzie continued with a shrug and a humorless laugh. “At first I thought she was joking. But she said it all so… I don’t even know. She was so final about it. Like she’d been waiting to say it for years. And I was eighteen, so I figured it was fair. Something a lot of people had to do when they were raised by a single parent.” She squeezed Elliott’s hand and gave her a small, tight smile. “I realized pretty quickly that wasn’t the case, but she’s my mom. She’s really all I had, and—” She paused, rolling her lips. Moving the words around her mouth. “I guess I was scared that if I stopped or argued about it or stood up to her or told her to stop treating me like she does, that she just… wouldn’t be there anymore.”

Elliott could only stare at her. Because that was it, wasn’t it? How difficult a line Mackenzie must walk trying to live her life and respect herself while also trying not to alienate the only person who had stuck around. Who treated her poorly but who had given her the basic necessities she needed to survive. The stark contrast between this version of Mackenzie and the version Elliott was used to seeing didn’t escape her. But how intolerable must it be for Mackenzie to, even for a moment, exist in a state of subordination and compliance when all Elliott saw was a woman who was so vibrant and independent and, frankly, intimidating? The dichotomy, rather than giving Elliott pause, gave rise to an insistent ache of secondhand grief and an overwhelming need to protect, and help, and reassure.

Elliott forced out a breath. “Mackenzie, you shouldn’t have to buy your mother’s love.” Mackenzie went still beside her, but she reasoned that Mackenzie needed somebody to say it. To tell her she deserved more than this. “I’m sorry, but I just needed you to know you don’t deserve what happened in there today. And you shouldn’t have to deal with it. And that I’m proud of you for standing up to her. That must have been so hard.”

For a heart-stopping moment, Elliott thought she’d gone too far. Said too much. But then she saw the tears escaping Mackenzie’s eyes.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. And what she said about you. I’m not—” Mackenzie shuddered in a breath, and Elliott had the overwhelming urge to do something—anything—to make Mackenzie smile. “Not the best version of myself with her. I⁠—”

“Mackenzie. Stop⁠—”

“No, I—I need to get this out.” A sharp breath, and Mackenzie seemed to speak through her teeth. “I never intended for you to meet her. Never wanted you to see me like that. I—” She paused. “I want you to respect me, and—and—” She choked off on a sob.

A sick, urgent need to quell this worry rose in Elliott, and she pushed the words out past the lump in her throat. “Mackenzie, you were so strong just now. All I saw was a beautiful, scared woman standing up for herself, and for me, despite the fear. And I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but you did it. Whoever you have been with her in the past—whatever that looked like—well, that person wasn’t in control today. I respect you, and I—” Elliott paused, considering how much she should say. The feeling of more welled inside her, but she swallowed it down and started again. “I care about you more today than I ever have. You deserve much better than how that woman treats you, and I intend to show you that.”

And Elliott’s heart melted as the soft “yeah” left Mackenzie. Elliott pulled her tight against her chest and pressed a soft kiss to her cold forehead, staring out at the skyline and wondering if she’d ever felt so much like she was right where she was supposed to be. Here. Comforting the person she was starting to think might be the person.

TWENTY-TWO

MACKENZIE

It was late in the afternoon, the winter sun bleeding into the horizon behind the lower half of Mount Rainier, and they were midway through another episode of Parks and Recreation. They hadn’t talked about it, but it seemed to be unspoken that neither of them wanted Elliott to leave. Mackenzie smiled down at Elliott’s head resting in her lap, thumb stroking the dark shadows under Elliott’s eyes. If Elliott wanted to stay, Mackenzie wouldn’t argue.