Page 36 of Make Me Scream
“If you are, just let me know, and I can turn up the heat. I want you to be comfortable.”
“Oh, there’s heat? That’s a fucking first,” I snap, crossing my arms over my chest, needingsomethingbetween us.
“Abel…” Bill drawls slowly, eyebrow raised in admonishment.
I open my mouth to argue, but Lucy raises her hand. “No, it’s okay. I deserve that.”
“And a lot more,” I spit.
“Now that’s enough, Abel,” Lucy bites back, cold as ice, and Ifreeze,legs frozen to the spot as a face aged but too similar to mine stares back at me.“I understand you don’t want to be here. That I am changing things that you would rather not have changed, but I am your mother?—”
“You arenotmy fucking mother!” I shout, voice cracking toward the end. “Don’t you dare even try to say that.”
“I am,” she argues like a fuckingchild.“You can’t deny our similarities.”
I huff a laugh. It’s cold and humorless. “You think because we share some looks that makes us family? That because we share some fucking blood, it means something? Let me tell you,Lucy.That doesn’t mean shit.” I take a step closer, relishing in the way her dull, gray eyes widen. “Elise has been more of a mother to me this last month than you have ever andwill everbe to me.
“I might have to be herelegally,but I will never listen to you, and you will never be my goddamn mom.” I take a step back, chest heaving with a force I fear will make me sick. “And you don’t even know my fucking birthday,” I add, spitting venom even as my eyes burn.
I’ve never hated the old Polaroid I have kept all these years more.
“It’s February eighth, Abel, for fucks sake,” is all she says, voice clipped, wrinkled lips pinched.
And I laugh. For so long that it isn’t until Bill clamps his hand on my shoulder that it stutters to a stop and my chuckles dissolve into sobs. They’re dry and tearless, but they wrack my entire body with a force that makes me sick. I dry heave, throat burning for endless moments, eyes burning from the force of my body retching.
Bill ushers me into the shabby bathroom and eases the door closed behind me, giving me privacy to get my shit together, butJesus fucking Christ, how am I supposed to do that when this is my life now?
In just two weeks, I’m supposed to behere… alone with her.
“What’s wrong with him?” I hear Lucy ask on the other side of the accordion fold door after I’ve finished vomiting my pain.
“This is a lot for him. You have to understand that.”
“Of course, I do,” Lucy huffs.
“I’m not sure you do. He was finally in a good home, and he’s being pulled out of it. It’s a lot for him to take in.”
“A good home,” she mutters as if it’s a fucking joke, then she adds a moment later, “What do you mean ‘finally’?”
I stiffen—and I think Bill probably does, too. “That’s not for me to share with you.”
“But I’m his mother,” she argues.
“Be that as it may, that’s Abel’s business.”
“I have a right?—”
“You actually don’t. And if you don’t mind, I’d like a minute alone to check on Abel—because this visit is about him and ensuring this transition is as smooth as possiblefor him.”
“Of course,” Lucy says, and her footsteps retreat, the floorboards creaking obnoxiously.
“Is she gone?” I choke out.
“Yeah, kid.”
At his response, I slide open the door and lean against the frame, wiping sweat from my temple with a wince. My stomach is curdling, and I just feel like ass. “Well, this has been exciting, hasn’t it?”
“It’s gone about as I expected it to, honestly.”
