>>thirteen

As she opened the door to the house, right away she could tell that something wasn't right. In any other situation, Mother would be in the kitchen, cooking dinner, filling the hallway with the scents of whatever it was that was on the meal plan for that day. The sound of the stove, and her chopping, would echo through the rooms.

However, there was none of that.

It was quiet.

Empty.

Lifeless even.

In the living room, there Mother sat on the sofa, bathed in darkness, merely watching Evelyn as she came through the doorway.

"Where were you?" She asked, showing no expression on her hardened face, giving no emotion to her monotonous voice.

"At debate club," Evelyn said without falter— something she'd learn to perfect over the past few weeks. "Where else?"

"Either, you can be honest with me Evelyn, or we can do this this another way. Your choice."

A double-edged sword. That was what Mother was like. Despite a lifetime of living with her, Evelyn never knew what the right answer was when she was with her.

Maybe that's because there wasn't a right answer, as far as Evelyn was concerned in the matter.

Mother stood up, still in her stiletto shoes, making her tower over Evelyn even more than she already did.

"You weren't at debate club, were you?" She took a step forward, while Evelyn remained rooted in place. "You were with that boy, weren't you? The one I specifically told you to stay away from."

"Mother, please I can—"

"No," she snapped. "I don't want to hear it!"

One thing, however, that Evelyn knew for sure right now was that she was unsafe. Mother wasn't planning on containing anything— it was in the way she trembled; the slow clench and unclenching of her hand; the static in the air.

How did she even know?

Evelyn thought she'd figured it all out— this whole time she thought she'd cracked the code, discovered the secret, on how to break the rules that Mother had so brutally laid out for Evelyn since she was a young child.

She'd let herself drink that forbidden potion known as hope. Something that she knew full well had poisoned her time and time again. And yet, like the stupid girl she was, that nagging little voice in the back of mind telling her 'drink me' overcame her rationality.

Because she knew the truth.

Mother knew all.

And she always would.

You stupid, stupid girl.

Slowly, she tried to take a step back. Evelyn released a cry as Mother grabbed her by the wrist, yanking her back into the room.

"Please, Mother."

"Don't try to walk away from me when I'm talking to you."

"I—I'm sorry Mother. Nothing happened, I promise. He just wanted to be friends."

She let out an empty laugh. "Nothing happened, huh?"

Evelyn nodded vigorously, unable to open her mouth in fear that nothing would come out.

Mother tightened her grip.

"You lying."

Tighter.

"Little."

Tighter.

"Please, Mother, you're hurting me."

"Whore."

Crack.

Evelyn yelped against the white, hot pain, and a blackness crowded her vision.

"I do everything for you. I gave up everything. I left that sack-of-shit husband and made a whole new life here for you."

She was holding her with such force that the veins in Mother's arms bulged with a bluish-blackness.

Evelyn couldn't feel a thing.

"And this is how you repay me?" She bared her teeth in a grimace. "I told you not to speak to that boy again— you have no one to blame but yourself for this."

She left go, and as though she was the lifeline keeping Evelyn standing this whole time, she slumped to the ground.

And there she left Evelyn, battered and bruise, in the living room of their prim and proper house, stained so brashly by Evelyn's insolence.

• • •

Time passed.

Maybe it was a few minutes. Perhaps a few hours. Evelyn couldn't really tell from under the throbbing pain of her wrist. Her face was hot and sticky from the tears, her mind the numbest of numbness. She almost didn't register the soft footsteps down the hall, until its source stood right before her.

"Evelyn?" Mother said, voice low.

She looked at Evelyn sprawled on the floor, unmoved since she collapsed there.

"Oh my baby," she whispered, taking the space beside her, pulling her into her arms. "I'm so sorry." Her mother rocked Evelyn back and forth, caressing her head, holding her tight as if she was the glue to all her cracked pieces. "Mummy didn't mean it."

She whispered those same words again and again. Words that Evelyn was all too familiar with.

On the surface, sorry sounded sad, pained and broken.

But underneath, it was shattered glass that bit anything it could latch onto— cotton sweaters; leather sofas; soft, fragile skin.

Sorry tells her its sorry in its millions of fractured fragments.

Sorry

sorry

s

o

r

r

y

Sorry hurts.