Page 19 of Selfie

A wave of fury takes me out of my body. My mind blanks as my limbs go numb momentarily. By the time I unball my fists, there are deep indents in my palm from where my nails nearly broke the skin. “Don’t do that anymore, okay? I want you to stop texting Jesse or I’ll take your phone away. Do you understand?” I try to keep my tone neutral, but I’m breathing fire and screaming atrocities on the inside.

“Yes.”

“But thank you for telling me, Charlie.”

“Can I still have the guinea pig?”

My eyelid starts to twitch. No matter how much I blink, I can’t calm the little nerve down. “Fine. Now, eat your breakfast. I even got boysenberry syrup for you.” Pulling off the covers, I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “I’m going to clean up the kitchen.”

“One more thing,” Charlie says as I near the door. She has no idea I’m in arm’s reach of an aneurysm.

“Yes?”

“I don’t think you’re fat. I think you’re the prettiest woman in the whole world. I just thought that if you were pregnant, it means you and Jesse would get back together. We could go home and be a real family.”

I keep my gaze fixed on her sad eyes. I wonder if this is how Mom felt at times after my dad left. Did she feel the pressure to make uswhole? I wish I could ask her what she’d do when her heart ached like this. Because no matter how much I sacrifice, and how quickly I force myself to grow up to be more of a mom than a sister, it’s not enough. There’s a hole in my little sister’s heart that she’s trying to fill with a greedy, materialistic snake.

“Charlie, wearea real family. Small, but real. We don’t need a man and a baby to complete us.”

She ducks her head. “Okay,” she murmurs. I’m sure my words are in one ear, out the other. I close the door behind me and hurry to my phone in my bedroom.

With inhuman speed, I unblock Jesse. I consider a text message, but it’s not enough. Not even a slew of profanity in bold, capital letters can convey my anger.

He answers on the first ring. “Spencer?”

The background noise is near deafening. “Where are you?”

“Courthouse,” he says. “One of my firm’s divorce cases escalated to trial. We’re dealing with a mess?—”

“I don’t care,” I interject, cutting him off before he can continue rambling about work. “I’ll make this quick. Stop contacting Charlie. End of story.”

“What? I?—”

“You put her on the internet, you psychopath! Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“Spence, calm down. I didn’t put her face online. Just her voice.”

“I don’t care! I can’t believe you’re still doing this. She is not your get-rich-quick plan, you selfish asshole.”

“Selfish? Spence, you’ve got this all wrong.” The background noise quiets after a door slams. Jesse’s voice is now echoing. “Everything I’ve done has been for us. I’m trying to take care of us.”

I scoff so hard my throat scratches. “Bullshit.Bull-fucking-shit.You’re filling her head with these asinine dreams of being the next Taylor Swift while you slowly drain every penny her dad left her. That’s all she has, Jesse. No dad, no mom,nothingexcept a little money to help get through college and to adulthood.”

“She has us.”

“Wrong. She hasme.” Which isn’t saying much because I’m the idiot who let Jesse trick me. “You lied to me. Youmanipulated me into signing everything over to you. And you know the worst part? I don’t know who I hate more. You, for taking everything from us, or me, for being foolish enough to trust you.”

“You’re just too young and naive to understand. I have a plan. I’ll get the money back, easily. This is insanity. You packed up your shit and just disappeared in the middle of the night with Charlie? You’re so immature.”

This has been the entire narrative of our relationship. Jesse calls me a child, and I shrivel because I’m scared he’s right. I was always enamored that Jesse was older and smarter. He’s a lawyer, for God’s sake. I thought I found a good one. I didn’t realize he spent four years at law school learning how to be even more conniving than he already was.

“You still there?” he asks after neither of us says anything for a solid minute.

“No,” I answer. It kills me that he chuckles. I wasn’t trying to be funny, but like it or not, sarcasm tends to be my primary communication style.

“I’m sorry. How do I fix this, baby? Come home and I’ll do anything. You can’t support Charlie and yourself on your own. You need me.”

He almost had me.In a brief moment of vulnerability, I just wanted him to pull a hero move and make it right. But when Jesse says he doesn’t believe I can do this by myself, he means it. The ledger against him is too long now. He treats me like a child. He doesn’t include me in decisions big or small, like where we’re going to live, or what we’re having for dinner. The man proposed without a ring, twisting the story as if he couldn’t afford the ring I deserved. I would’ve proudly worn a Ring Pop if it came from his heart.

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