Page 57 of Make Me Scream
She fuckingtsks.“Why, Abel?”
“Why not,Lucy?You don’t even want me; you just want poweroverme and my life.”
“That’s not true?—”
“Yes, it is,” I snap, leaving no room for argument as I delve into my bag for my discman and headphones. The bottle of pink spray paint clanks against it, and I smile at the memory of tagging Peris’s parking spot.
Just as I draw my headphones over my ears, Lucy says, “I’ll prove it to you.”
“Mmm, no thanks,” I respond with a grimace. “I’d rather fucking choke.” And with that, I press play on my Eminem CD and skip to track four—“Cleanin’ Out My Closet.”
Her apartment is justas shitty as I remember—and the stench of cigarettes is repugnant.
“It fucking stinks in here,” I mutter as I walk over the threshold.
“Yes, please, make yourself at home,” she mutters, clearly over my shit.
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do, dear mother?” I mock as I take a look around. I’ve had three visits since the dreaded Thanksgiving fiasco, and each one has been just as bad as the last. I’ve spent the entire time in the kitchen since then, refusing to look around, even as Lucy—and even Bill—have tried to convince me to look around at what would eventually be my home.
But now’s the time, I guess.
“Would you like me to show you to your room?”
“I guess I need to know where I’m going to sleep,” I mutter as I grab my bags, struggling to pick up Peris’s black one with the weight of it.
“Do you want me?—”
“No,” I snap. “Don’t ever touch my shit.”
She raises her hands in mock defense. “All right, I won’t.”
“Good,” I mutter and pathetically drag my bag behind me, down the small hallway. Lucy opens the accordion fold door and flicks on the light, illuminating a small bedroom with a twin-sized mattress on a bare frame. The rest of the room is completely bare with one small window, and the walls are stained yellow, but it doesn’t smell as bad as the rest of thehouse, if a little musty, but it’s my own space, and it has a bed, so who am I to complain?
“Thanks,” I mutter as I push past her and drop my bag to the bed, leaving the other on the worn carpet. “I don’t need to worry about bed bugs or anything, do I?” I ask as I eye the bare bed I’m sitting on, the thought making my skin crawl.
Lucy scoffs. “No. All good on that front.”
“Thank fuck. Those are a bitch.” I shudder involuntarily.
It’s awkward for a few moments as I stare out the small, frosty window, aching for a bit of fresh air.
“Dinner will be in an hour,” she announces.
I scoff and roll my eyes. “No, thanks.”
“Abel,” she drawls with a long sigh. “You need to eat.”
“Not any of your fucking food, I don’t.”
“Are we really going to keep doing this?”
“Do what, exactly?” I ask, turning away from the window to meet a face that has haunted me, yet kept me going for years.
“This back and forth, spewing venom. It’s exhausting.”
“You shouldn’t have torn me from my family, then,” I tell her bluntly, not having realized what I said until the words had fallen from my lips.
My family…
