Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 815(@200wpm)___ 652(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
He was born in it; she wasn’t. I later found out that she fought her way to the top after escaping an abusive childhood in France that she never talked about.
Mom was beautiful, having bestowed me with her ethereal looks. After the divorce, she found countless men at her doorstep, all ready to gift her with her luxurious lifestyle.
But no matter what she had, it was never…enough.
Dad gave her a mansion for us to live in as well as a generous alimony. Mom said he didn’t give us even zero-point-five percent of his fortune and that he just didn’t love us enough, because he wanted to get rid of us and start a new family.
The men who came into her life after my dad never measured up to him in wealth or power, and although she got whatever she wanted from them, she wasn’t satisfied. I had to hear about it as she drowned herself in her favorite bottle of wine.
They weren’t rich enough. They weren’t generous enough. Just not enough.
Even if she’d gone back to Dad—whom she hated because he was the only man who told her no—she would’ve been dissatisfied with him after a while.
It was the reason for their divorce in the first place. She kept pushing him for more, nagging and starting fights on the regular. She’d shout the house down in her drunken episodes, waking me up from sleep.
I used to watch from the corner of the stairs as their endless fights dragged on and on.
Until Dad had enough and let her go.
She never forgave him for that. Until the day she died.
“He’s the reason I’m like this,” she told me once, crying over her own vomit after I put my fingers in her mouth.
That’s what I learned to do when she got too drunk. I had to make her vomit, then take her to her room and help her wash her hair. After that, I’d tuck her in as she mumbled words I couldn’t understand.
“I love you, Preston, you know that, right?” She sniffled and stroked my hair. “Mon petit chou…mon trésor.”
My sweet little one.
My treasure.
That’s what she always called me.
That’s what made me stay by her side even though sometimes, she was too busy feeling sorry for herself, getting drunk, and chasing a high that never came.
And when she finally saw me that night exactly fifteen years ago, broken and just…an empty fucking shell, she couldn’t bear it.
I lean back against the car seat, staring at the lighter.
The images from that day coming in small lightning flashes.
My jaw hurts as hushed, broken grunts fill my ears and the stench of cologne and overpowering mint gags me. A brick sits on top of me, completely immobilizing me.
But it’s okay.
Because I’m staring at the ceiling, at those little stars in my room. They look like me sometimes, far away and disconnected and just…not here.
Not sure why, all of a sudden, my dead eyes stare at my door. I used to look at my door weeks ago.
When this brick came to my room the first time and I couldn’t breathe.
“Maman?” I called out stupidly that time, thinking she’d come to check on me.
But it wasn’t Mom.
Not that time.
Not the next.
I guess a part of me knew she’d come for me at some point.
She’d know.
She’d feel it.
Jude says moms know. Moms should know.
She’d save me.
I waited and waited, and she finally came.
Today.
She’s standing right there in her white silk robe, her face nearly turning the same color as the fabric.
I’ve always wanted Mom to come, but in this moment, I wish she hadn’t.
I’ve never seen that look in Mom’s eyes. Not even the day I left Dad’s house with her, not even when her friend died.
Her beautiful face blanches, her eyes becoming hollow as she trembles uncontrollably, two lines of tears sliding down her cheeks.
My mom is crying, and all I want to do is to go to her.
Help her.
But I can’t move.
All I can do is watch as she walks toward me, her legs barely holding her as tears stream down her cheeks and onto her neck.
In one single motion, she grabs a lamp from the side of the bed and hits him—the brick that was on top of my chest.
She hits him so hard, letting out a roar that pierces my ears, a roar I can still hear in my dream.
A roar that will deafen me till the day I die.
She hits him, my mom, and he falls forward, then smacks his head on the headboard and drops sideways to the floor.
Mom gathers me in her arms and sobs uncontrollably in my hair.
“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice intertwined with hiccups. “Pardonnez-moi, mon chou (forgive me, my darling)…so sorry…so, so sorry.”
She repeats that over and over and over again in English, in French—mostly in French—her words barely audible.