Page 13 of Cruel When He Smiles
For a second, I just stare at the screen. I haven’t spoken to her in months and haven’t seen her in years. When I’m back home, Istay at my apartment, at Blackthorne, I’m at the frat. I keep my distance from her at all times.
And yet, she still calls.
The logical thing to do would be to let it ring out. Ignore it. Pretend I didn’t see it, pretend I was busy, pretend I didn’t feel my entire body react like it always does when she decides to insert herself into my life.
But if I ignore it, she’ll just call again.
And again.
And again.
I clench my jaw and press accept, forcing my lungs to work properly, forcing my fingers to move as I slide my thumb over the screen and bring the phone to my ear. My voice is tight when I answer. “Yeah?”
“Sweetheart,” she says. I hate that fucking word and how smoothly it comes out. As if she hasn’t made my entire existence something I have to escape. “It’s been too long. You never call.”
I swallow hard, my fingers tightening around my phone, my other hand flexing at my side. “I’m not allowed to,” I say, my voice clipped.
“Oh, nonsense,” she laughs softly, unbothered by the literal protection order against her. “You’re always busy these days.”
Because I stay as far the fuck away from you as possible.
I can hear the smile in her voice. The warmth, the softness, the way she speaks as though we have a normal relationship, and she’s just checking in on her son.
It makes me feel fucking sick.
I force my feet to move again, taking long, steady strides down the steps, like walking will make this conversation go faster. “Yeah. Classes, soccer. Same shit as always.”
She laughs lightly, and I hate that too. “I’m sure you’re excelling,” she says, voice full of practiced affection. She loves brushing past the fact that she perfected the art of making mefeel like absolutely fucking nothing my entire life. “You always were so determined.”
My grip tightens on the phone. I breathe in through my nose, slow and steady, keeping my voice even. “Yeah, well. That’s why I got in.”
She sighs; the sound is soft and airy, like she’s reminiscing about something I don’t want to remember. “Just like your father.”
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to stand here, listening to her voice, feeling my chest tighten, feeling the old weight of everything she is pressing down on me from a fucking phone call.
I want to fucking vomit. How does she still have this grip on me?
“You haven’t called in so long. I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten about your poor mother.”
I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches.Poor mother.That’s how she plays it—every time. Sweet. Wounded. Making me out to be the villain in some fantasy she’s scripted. When she was the one who turned gaslighting into a fucking artform and used it to twist my head until I didn’t know what was real anymore.
“I’ve just been busy,” I say again, my tone hollow and flat. My voice doesn’t even sound like mine. It sounds like the boy she used to talk circles around.
“That’s no excuse, Nathaniel.”
And there it is.Nathaniel.The name she only uses when she’s feeling self-righteous. When she wants to remind me thatshegave me my name and it gives her ownership.
I close my eyes for a second, just one breath, one blink of darkness. I can feel it happening again—that nauseating shift. The way she pulls me back into the past with a single word. The way the ground tilts beneath me, even though I’m not ten anymore and she shouldn’t be able to touch me here.
There’s a beat of silence. A pause so heavy it rings. Then, just as I expect, her voice softens even more. “Baby… are you alright?”
I don’t want to be called that.
I never want to hear that word from her again. It wasn’t endearing when I was a kid, and it sure as hell isn’t now. It’s a leash, a trigger and a trap dressed up in sentiment. That’s what she does best—makes poison sound like love.
“I’m fine,” I say. Too fast. Too fucking clipped.
“You don’t sound fine.”
