Wild(96)

            “I think the entire bar heard that.” The way her lips curled around the word bar told me exactly what she thought of me living above one.

            I dragged a ragged breath into my lungs. “Hello, Mother.”

            IT TOOK LESS THAN an hour to pack up my things. Mom insisted we could pay someone to pack the rest and ship it back home. As far as she was concerned, she wanted to get me out of this cesspit—her words—and back home where I belonged. Permanently.

            I didn’t argue. She hardly looked at me as she moved about the loft, grabbing my things and stuffing them into my luggage. Her inability to meet my gaze conveyed just how disappointed in me she was. I didn’t need to ask why she was here. Whether or not she’d seen the photos on my wall. She had.

            My heart felt like a twisting mass in my chest. I wasn’t going to get through to her in her present mood. My best hope was to go home and visit for a few days until she cooled down.

            She zipped my suitcase with flourish. “There. Let’s go. We don’t want to miss our plane.”

            I nodded.

            “You have your ID and phone?”

            It was the same question she had asked me every time I left for the airport. Ever since I took my first trip. I nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

            Mom walked downstairs ahead of me. I paused on the threshold and looked around the loft, telling myself it wasn’t the final time I would be seeing it. I liked living here. My own space. And I had so many memories of Logan wrapped up in the place. With an inhale, I closed the door and locked up after me.

            MUSKOGEE WAS THE KIND of place that changed very little over time. A relatively affluent community half an hour outside of Auburn, the male population lived for football and good barbecue. The women lived for church and gossip. Teenage girls in Muskogee lived for cotillion. As I was reminded as I stood in my sister’s bedroom.

            I peered into Amber’s closet, admiring the white gown that hung from her door, and tried to look genuinely interested.

            I had dragged myself from my bedroom, where I’d been hiding the last two days, to see it. She had been bugging me to check out her gown ever since I arrived—indifferent to the circumstances of my return or Mom’s black mood.

            Mom had yet to talk to me since we got back. A fact that told me how truly angry with me she was. I’d texted my friends and called Dr. Chase, explaining that I went home for a short visit. No one pressed me as to when I would return, which was a good thing, since it wasn’t a subject I had addressed with my parents yet.

            “Do you love it?”

            I stroked the silk flounces. “It’s beautiful.”

            “Here.” She pulled a heavy scrapbook off her desk. Together, we sat on the bed and flipped through the pages that captured every moment leading up to and through the night of her cotillion.

            “Did you have a good time?” I asked, pausing at a picture of her with Mom before the fireplace. Mom looked happy. Proud. It made me think of my own cotillion.

            I’d attended with Harris as my escort. It had been the highlight of high school for me. Shopping for the perfect dress with Mom. My photograph in the newspaper alongside all the other debutantes. Waltzing in Harris’s arms at a fancy hotel ballroom.

            I remember thinking that night was so magical. But now it seemed a dim memory. That girl someone from a very long time ago. The pride in my mother’s eyes a faint recollection.

            I glanced at my sister. She was blond like me, but with my stepfather’s green eyes. I had been her—without the fear of rejection. My real father’s legacy was always there. Still to this day. Like a snake ready to strike and release its venom.