Page 99 of Tomorrow Belongs to Us
“That … that little … slut?” she spits back.
“Hire a butler, Vivian. Go at it all you want.”
I slam the phone down.
Chapter 37
MEGAN
“Is it true?” My mom’s voice drips acid. My cell phone is on loudspeaker so that I can still iron my clothes. It helps to be doing something when I talk to my mom.
“Is what true?” My guard tightens. I’ve been expecting this call all weekend but it didn’t come. I know exactly what my mom is angry about.
“Your high school teacher, of all men,” my mother snarls at me across the phone line. “What's possessed you?”
Barely thirty minutes have passed since Erica left. We’ve had a relatively good weekend, catching up, and awkwardly steering our conversations away from the opening blockbuster scene she witnessed when she first arrived.
I was hoping she would have kept this news to herself, but Lance Turner being back in my life is big news for my family. I pray Erica had the decency to leave out the details of how she discovered us together.
“He's not my teacher anymore, Mom. We’re all grown up now.”
“Lance Turner,” she hisses. “That man should be locked up.”
“For what?”
“Don’t even get me started.”
“For what, Mom?” I place the iron back on the stand, before I get so worked up over this and burn my silk blouse.
“For doing what he did.”
I inhale and count to five. I’m not even going to lie. “He’s good to me.” I’m aware that this sounds weak.
It’s also not enough. These words don’t fully explain how I feel about him. Howhemakesmefeel. I'm falling for him, and I may already have fallen face first onto the ground. I can’t stop thinking about him, and my obsession now is worse than ever.
We've been texting while Erica was here. He wanted to see me, but he didn't want to get me in any more trouble. He’s aware that my family aren't his biggest fans, and he's worried about me.
“Why him, Meg? Of all the men you could have gone out with, whyhim?”
I can’t work out why she’s still so angry all these years later. She seems to have forgotten what life was like for us. How the father we once knew disappeared forever and took no interest in our welfare and wanted nothing to do with us. How can she so conveniently forget that she overdosed and our family was thrown into further chaos? Or that she had to be nursed back to her sanity and health, and that I became responsible for my siblings.
Lance Turner made my life easier, not harder. And now that I know the full truth, that he didn't intend to leave, I am content with his explanation.
Maybe the rumors that spread around school like a contagious disease is karma I deserved, because I wasn't purely innocent. I seduced him. I went to Lance that night with all that need and unrequited love burning a hole in me. I needed a release and I made him give it to me.
“Lance didn't ruin my life, Mom. It was nothing that he did. It was you and dad fighting all the time. You not being able to cope when he left you, and everything that happened after that, that's what caused me pain.”
My mother makes a noise at the other end, something like a gasp and a shock. My gut twists. It's too late to take my words back. “I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean it like that.”
“Don't you dare put this on me. I was in a bad place. You have no idea of the hell I went through.”
“I said I’m sorry. I'm a grown woman now. We're not at school.”
“He's not to be trusted.”
“For goodness’ sake. Just leave it, Mom. Please.”
Naturally, she doesn’t. “How long has this been going on?”
