I almost laugh at the irony. I feel the direct opposite of happy right now. “Oh, you know…” I stay evasive and take another sip of my beer.
Melanie or Melissa tips her head to the side and sucks in her cheek. “So, do you remember me?”
Damn. This girl is asking for it. I let my eyes fall to her tits and I feel a mild twinge of interest. “Sure I remember you. It’s ahhh—”
“Megan,” she says coyly, inching closer and reaching for my chin. I don’t fight it and this seems to encourage her. She brings her moist lips to my ear and I feel the brush of her nails as her left hand creeps under the bottom of my shirt. “Well, that’s very nice to hear because I certainly remember you, Cole.”
Aimee
“Is it me, or are you ready to douse yourself in kerosene and light a match?” I ask, waving stiffly as I watch the taillights of my parent’s black sedan disappear around the curve in the street.
“Try ‘slit my own neck’ and you’d be right on target with the way that I feel right now.” Mara lets her fake smile drop into a frown. She cups her arms behind her neck and turns toward the front door of our townhouse with a sigh.
I follow her past the small galley kitchen and into the living room. Mara kicks off her black ballet flats and launches herself onto the light green couch. She closes her eyes as she drops her arms against her lap with a slap.
I sink in beside her and reach for the remote resting on the low side table. Powering on the TV, I ask, “Do you want to watch a movie? I think we’ve got that new one with Ryan Gosling.”
Mara’s eye pop open. She wipes her brown hair from her forehead. “Aimee, I can’t think about Ryan Gosling right now.”
“Come on, Mara. You’re breathing therefore you can think about Ryan Gosling.”
“Can you be serious for a minute? I want to talk about what happened at dinner. I want—” She makes a frustrated sound. “I just can’t believe her!”
“Mara, don’t…” I blink.
“I’m sorry that she went so far with you. I—” Mara sucks in a jagged breath. “I should have stepped in sooner.”
She’s referring to our mother. “They just…” I let my voice fall away, not knowing exactly what to say. Handling Carl and Elise Spencer is always a delicate matter. My parents aren’t bad people—they just don’t like dealing with anything disruptive or complicated. And for over a year, disruptive and complicated means me.
Mara shimmies closer to me and rests her cheek on the curve of my shoulder. “She just doesn’t know when to quit, does she Aimee?”
I grunt.
Mara’s head comes up and she looks at me seriously. “I think that Mom’s lost her mind this time.”
“No, she thinks that I’ve lost mine.” Judging by the sour expression on Mara’s face, she doesn’t think my joke is even a little bit funny. I roll my eyes and continue talking, “Look, Mara, it’s not as bad as it seems with Mom. She’s just overly worried about me, and Dad goes along with whatever she wants because he doesn’t want to rock the boat with her.”
Mara’s hands come up to her face. She’s annoyed. “But wanting you to drop out of college and spend the entire year at home? That makes absolutely no sense to me.”
Mom had called earlier this week and presented the idea of us all having dinner tonight to celebrate Dad’s birthday. What she failed to mention was that it was an ambush.
Her voice filters through my brain.
We hear that you haven’t made an appointment with that new therapist yet.
You saw Daniel Kearns last week?
Have you tried that make-up I bought you to cover up the scar?
Your new friend has blue hair?
From the way she was going at it, I thought that she was ready to lock me up in some institution to deal with my “emotional instability,” so I was almost relieved that all she suggested was that I take the year off and come home. Maybe college is too much pressure right now, she’d said. She even tried to entice me with talk of a trip to Europe with her and my dad in the spring.
“You have to give her some leeway. She’s convinced herself that I’m going to slit my wrists any day now and I don’t really think anything that I say or do at this point will make her believe otherwise. Every little thing sets off some kind of alarm with her. It’s like she’s decided that if I’m closer to her physically, she’ll be able to control the situation and somehow magically turn back time to make me the person that I was… before.”
Before.
I don’t need to clarify for Mara. It seems like my entire life is broken up into two parts: before and after.