Page 9 of Say You Will

My mother had sabotaged all of my applications. When I confronted her, she said those jobs would have been “too hard” on me. There’s no reasoning with her. The only thing I know how to do is work around her “good intentions.”

“That money was for your daily expenses, so you could pay for lunch and put gas in your car. It wasn’t meant for you to hoard so you could sneak off.”

“I didn’t sn—”

“I’ll pay you to be my PA and let you go back to grad school. Then you can say you have the independence you want so badly.” She uses her coaxing, reasonable voice, as though autonomy is a silly, selfish goal for a twenty-three-year-old woman.

This is her backing down from her latest ultimatum, then. “No amount of financial assistance with school is worth my self-respect.”

“I can’t understand why you chose this hill to die on. I wasn’t criticizing you.” Anxiety leaks through her words.

I scrub my forehead with my fingers. “I don’t want surgery for the sake of meeting some beauty standard I don’t even care about. It doesn’t matter to me what size my breasts are, and I have more important things to worry about than weighing a few pounds more than what you think is my ‘ideal weight.’”

“Seventeen is not a few, and it’s not what Ithink. It’s what our trainer agrees is the healthiest weight for you. What’s the difference between this and when I paid for your surgery for that terrible overbite? I’m helping you to be the best version of yourself.”

Insurance paid most of my orthognathic surgery costs, and for the braces before and after to correct the problems caused by my upper and lower jaws growing at different rates, but if I say that, she’ll point out that she paid for the insurance. “My overbite caused jaw pain and headaches. It was a medical issue. I care about how I’m functioning. I exercise to stay healthy, and I stop when I’m causing more harm than good. This body is the only one I’ve got. I’m giving myself grace.”

She scoffs in disgust.

I don’t expect her to understand. My mother’s obsession with maintaining her own physical perfection is hard to watch without feeling pity. My best friend’s mother Charlotte was my true role model. Not that I was stupid enough to admit something like that in front of my mother. I’d have never been allowed to stay with the McRaes again.

Five years ago, Mom’s obsession with her own appearance expanded to include mine. I never figured out exactly what made her decide it was time for me to move to England with her. She simply showed up one Christmas break from school, and at the end of it, decided she was going to keep me with her for the last half of my senior year of high school.

I had chronic headaches at the time, and she took me to a doctor who recommended I see a surgeon for my jaw. She’d seemed to relish the process. She transitioned from love bombing to someone obsessed with what she felt she “created” when my new jawline emerged as a result of the surgery and braces. It was a power trip for her, and she set about transforming me from the awkward, bullied girl I’d been, into a clone of herself.

According to her, I owe her for my very existence. Guinevere Jones doesn’t quite see me as a real person, no matter what she says. I’m an accessory. Like a pretty pair of shoes. I exist to boost her ego and be available for her needs.

When my best friend nearly died in a stalker attack and Mom didn’t even want me to see her, I knew I had to come back to the East Coast and get away from my mother for good. Bronwyn’s recent brush with death put things into perspective for me. I’m done living as my mother’s possession.

One thing after another kept me at her home in California, but I’m here now, and that’s what matters. “I’m looking for work. I explained—”

“The McRaes are not your family. They kept you during holidays and summer breaks from school as a child out of pity. I’m your mother. I don’t mind keeping you, but you can’t go there and expect to stay with them indefinitely while you look for a job. You’re taking advantage of them. I have secondhand embarrassment just thinking about it.”

I grit my teeth. How she manages to zero in on my every fear and insecurity, I’ll never know. “When Jonny gets back from Paris, I’m sure he’ll let me crash at his place.”

I’m sure of no such thing. To say my father is inconsistent in his affection or availability would be generous, but Charlotte swore she wanted me here. If she hadn’t, I’d have found another way to leave my mother.

“Do you think I don’t know you’re there because of Henry McRae?”

I heave a silent sigh. “I was eighteen when I told you I had a crush on Henry. It’s ancient history. I haven’t even spoken with him in almost five years. I got over the puppy love, Mom.”

“You tried to go back there within six months to return to people who didn’t want you. Every time you decide to leave, it’s with some insane plan to return to New York.”

When I initially left with Mom, I didn’t have insecurities about the McRaes or my friendship with Henry. As time passed, however, her words wore a groove in my memories until I got to a place where I didn’t know if I’d been oblivious to the fact that they simply tolerated me or if they really did care about me. I distanced myself emotionally, unwilling to be an unwanted fifth wheel or an object of pity.

Regret sits like an unmoving ball of lead in my gut. If Bronwyn hadn’t been the kind of person who would track me down, and Clarissa and Janessa hadn’t been the kind of friends who insisted on including me in group texts even after I’d withdrawn, I’d have become completely isolated.

I’ve been trying to find a way to extricate myself from living with my mother since nearly the beginning. My surgery, then later my rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, my education, the constant need for bodyguards, even Oliver’s vet bills, have kept me wrapped in silk cords that look like she’s providing care and protection from the outside, but from the inside feel like a cage.

Mom also isn’t wrong that I still have feelings for Henry, but she doesn’t have any way of knowing that. Most people don’t hang on to teenage crushes the way I have.

“You were assaulted less than six weeks ago. There’s no reason to rush this,” she says.

“I was shaken up. I wasn’t hurt.”

“Someone tried tokidnapyou. Don’t dismiss this as if it’s nothing. This is the third time someone has gone after you in the last two years,” she says in horrified tones.

Gee, thanks for reminding me, Mom.“Obviously, they thought I was you. That isn’t going to happen when we aren’t even on the same side of the country. I changed my hair color, and I’ve gained weight. If I’m not coming and going from your house, no one will make the connection between us.”

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