Page 41 of A Scandal in Homeroom
“Why not?”
“You think I’m going to sit here and unload about my past. To you?”
“I’ll unload about my past,” I offered. “If you care to hear it.”
Intrigued, probably despite herself, she nodded. “Sure.”
I stood and clasped my hands behind my back. A habit I’d gleaned from my father, unfortunately. It helped to curb my appetite for the vape pen, which I wasn’t supposed to do inside the house, and was limiting my use altogether since Irene had asked me that one time if I wouldn’t rather smell her instead.
“My mother is my father’s third wife. She is what many consider a trophy wife. Twenty-five years younger than him, beautiful with quite a taste for money. Also, she has no love for my father.”
“That’s some way to talk about your mother.”
I shrugged. “I suppose it seems cruel, but it’s the truth.”
“Do you…I mean, do you…care for her? She is your mother.”
“She’s the woman who gave birth to me,” I corrected her. “I was raised by a series of nannies until I was of an age to go to boarding school. So I know a little something about institutions, too.”
“I’m sorry,” she offered.
“For what?” I asked, genuinely confused by her response.
“That you’re not close with her. That you think she doesn’t love you.”
I smiled. “I don’tthinkshe doesn’t love me. I know it. I simply don’t care. That might sound like an angry teenage boy whose mother doesn’t love him, but I’m not…like other boys my age. When I tell you I don’t care, I don’t care.”
“What about your father?”
I turned and paced to the other end of the living room. “He’s an impressive man. Quite intelligent. Cold, hard, but it was how he was raised. He’s seen to my education and for that I’m grateful. He’s given over the remainder of my upbringing to my brother Croft, for which I’m also grateful.”
“You and your brother are close then.”
“As close as we’re capable of being, I suppose. I have affection for him. I’m capable of that. If that’s what you’re wondering.”
I didn’t have a lot of time or use for emotions. I found them…messy. So I worked hard to contain them. Categorize them. Label them. If I could identify what I was feeling, correctly source where it emerged from, I could put it in a box on a shelf in my mind.
However, it didn’t mean I wasn’t capable of having them.
“I’m human, Irene,” I said.
Beyond human. Because all that sorting, labeling and boxing didn’t work when it came to how I felt about her.
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
I unclasped my hands and sat across from her again.
“Now you go,” I directed.
“I never agreed to this game.”
I raised my eyebrow and it seemed to unnerve her.
“I already told you about my mother.”
“She was a sex worker,” I stated.
She snorted at that. “She wasn’t asex worker. It’s not like she knew what she was doing. Or had some kind of business. She wasn’t licensed and working in a brothel or anything like that. She whored herself out for drugs because she was out of her mind.”
