Fake It 'Til You Break It(53)

With a sigh, I clean up the mess and put the pills back in the container. I go to put the lid on, but resentment flares in my chest as the little red pills mock me, the life I used to have and the life I have now.

Pills that caused me to have to rush home from the beach because my mom decided to take a few too many after a late-night visit from my asshole dad.

I know he found out I was away with friends, which is what led him here that night. I haven’t decided yet if this was out of spite, all to ruin the one weekend away I tried to allow myself or if he was simply taking advantage of my absence.

He’s a sick piece of shit with no regard for the woman he once loved and married and had a son with. If she dies, he inherits all her fortune because while they’re divorced, he’s still in her will and I can’t convince her to change it.

Fuck it.

I tip my hand, letting the poison spill into the sink, running the water to wash them into the disposal, but I don’t turn it on and risk waking her.

I’ll pay for this later, one way or another, but I’ll deal with it as it comes.

As quietly as possible, I open the slider door, grabbing the bag to take it out so it doesn’t stink up the whole house by morning.

I make it halfway to the can when Demi’s voice breaks through the silence of the evening, and I pause in place.

“Are you joking?” Demi laughs, scornfully.

“I don’t know what you’re so upset about,” her ma fires back.

“It’s the seventh of the month, Mom.”

“I’m aware, thank you.”

“How have you already spent all your alimony?” Demi questions. “This makes six months now you’ve asked me to give you money. Dad’s driving into town next weekend to visit. He’s going to ask me where it all went. We always go over my finances when he’s here. I had a savings started he was helping me build. Now I don’t. How am I supposed to explain this? He already called me when you overdrew my card last time, you know, when you took it without even telling me?”

“You’ll say not a word, Demi. Tell him you’re a typical teenager who loves to shop and go out to fancy lunches and things. Tell him you want to live the life he promised us when you were five.”

“You mean the life you live, the life he promised you that he worked his ass off to give you while you sat back constantly telling him it wasn’t enough?!” Demi shouts, but I’d almost say anger is absent from her tone. “I don’t want to live like you. I don’t need to.”

“You have no idea what life is. You’re going to be hit with a rude awakening one day and see it all through my eyes.” There’s a long pause before her mom continues. “It’s no wonder you lost the boy to that floozy friend of yours.”

Whoa, what?

“Don’t start.”

“Then wake up before it’s too late, and she ends up pregnant or something stupid!”

“I don’t understand what you’re playing at, Mom. You give me your little speech that comes after every outing with Clara, before you go, and then you approach Nico about me, for what? To make sure I have a back-up plan you can’t stick your nose up at?” Sarcasm drips from her words, but more so than that, she sounds tired. Fed up with... life, maybe. Like me.

“I have every right to worry about the wellbeing of my daughter. If I have to intervene in areas, I will. I spoke to Krista’s father before the party, we had a long conversation and he shared he sees a lot of the young man,” her mother says in a plummy voice. “I wasn’t aware he and Trent were such great friends.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t a big deal, I kindly asked him if he could ensure the boy’s room was beside yours, is all.”

Good looking out, lady.

“Of course you did,” Demi says monotone. “What did you say to Nico, Mom? That your daughter is weak and needy because she wishes her mom would be around more?”

“You act as if you don’t enjoy the freedom you have.”

“What did you say to him?”

“All I asked was for him to make sure you were safe since you went alone. I have to say, he was rather eager.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“It was only a little fun I thought I’d try out, some healthy competition to see if we could evoke jealousy.”

“You... what?!”

“Honey, we have to get the ball rolling.”

“It’s never going to happen. Like ever. You’re insane and you don’t listen to anything I say!”

My head tugs back.

What the fuck are they talking about?

“You know what,” Demi adds after a long second, defeat driving her words. “I don’t know why I asked, I should be thanking you.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell you.” The smug smile in her mother’s tone is easily caught.

She didn’t pick up on her daughter’s hurt at all.

Does she even know her?

“No, I mean I should thank you for talking to Nico.”

Silence stretches a moment, so I move closer to the fence until I can see through.

There’s a tight crease at the edge of her mom’s eyes. “What do you mean by that?”

“Me and Nico, we had fun at Krista’s party and we’ve been having fun since.”