Lizzie Blake's Best Mistake (A Brush with Love, #2)(86)
Tension radiated throughout the room, slapping against Lizzie’s senses. She waited, head bent as she stared down at her lap, peeking at her mom and preparing for things to turn ugly any moment.
Finally, Claire daintily cleared her throat. “I wanted to say that I regret how things ended last night.”
Lizzie’s eyes went wide as she wondered if hell just froze over and the end of times was upon them. Was Claire Blake about to apologize?
Claire continued, “I’m sorry if you felt our reaction to your career news wasn’t as … enthusiastic as you wanted. But I would hope you could understand my perspective. Hopefully we can move past this … For my part, I’m prepared to forgive you, Elizabeth,” she said softly. Almost kindly.
Lizzie jerked back like her mom slapped her. “Forgive me?” Lizzie said, looking around the room. “For what?”
Clair blew out a breath through her nose as she looked at Lizzie, searching for patience. With a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, she leaned over and held Lizzie’s hand. Lizzie knew that her mom was trying to make the touch comforting, but Claire’s skin was cool and foreign.
“You pulled quite the dramatic exit last night,” Claire said, as though this all should be obvious. “And you dragged Ryan and Mary into the theatrics. On a weekend that is supposed to be celebrating me and your father, no less. And this isn’t the first time you’ve centered the attention on yourself over the years.”
Lizzie blinked. “You expect me to apologize for … getting upset? After what you said to me?” Lizzie was trying to understand … she was always trying to understand the disconnect between her mother’s expectations and who Lizzie was.
Claire pulled her hand back, sighing again. “I do, yes. I expect you to apologize for making a scene. I expect you to apologize for your belligerent reaction to my genuine concern for your career choices. If I don’t take your future and career seriously, who will?”
“I’m pregnant, Mom.” The words were out before Lizzie even realized they were in her head.
Claire sat there, expressionless and unblinking.
“Rake’s the father,” Lizzie added. Anything to break up the silence.
Something in Claire’s face snapped, a wave of anger rippling across her composed features. “Jesus, Elizabeth. This is unacceptable.”
“Do you not like Rake?”
“My feelings on him are irrelevant,” Claire said, her lips twitching as she spoke. “The issue is you and your careless decisions. Your reckless behavior. Do you have any idea how this will look? For you? For us?” Claire rubbed her temples. “A child out of wedlock? What were you thinking?”
Lizzie felt herself cowing to her mother’s sharp voice, shame prickling across her skin, that mean voice in her head gaining volume as it told her what a mess she was.
But that wasn’t true, was it? She wasn’t ideal or conventional by any standards, but she also wasn’t this mortifying wreck her mom painted her as. Claire hadn’t even asked how Lizzie was doing. How she was feeling. All she’d thought about was herself.
“I don’t really care,” Lizzie said, looking straight at her mom.
Claire blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t fucking care.”
“Don’t use that language,” Claire said.
Lizzie ignored her. “I don’t care what you tell people at the stupid country club. I don’t care how it feels for you to hear the news so suddenly, because you’ve never given me any indication that you actually give a fuck about what I do unless it messes up your idea of perfection.”
“How could you say that to me?” Claire asked, astounded. “I won’t sit here and be spoken to this way.”
“Go ahead, Mom. Leave. And then what? Say something else passive-aggressive and cutting on your way out? Ignore me for a few more years? You’ve already done that so thoroughly, I doubt my worth with every person I interact with. So go ahead, say something bitchy.” Lizzie could feel her anger welling up inside of her like a red-hot burst that threatened to burn her alive.
Claire sniffed, looking at her nails, sharp judgment and disapproval pushing out of her and cutting Lizzie’s skin like shards of glass.
“All my life I just wanted you to see me, Mom,” Lizzie said, her voice cracking on the words as she spoke through a knot in her throat, tears threatening to spill over onto her cheeks.
“I do see you, Elizabeth,” Claire said through tight lips. “You’re sitting right in front of me.”
“Not literally, Mom. I wanted you to understand me.”
Claire tilted her head. “Why do you insist on this narrative that you were so neglected? You were clothed and fed. You had a great education, every opportunity before you. Parents who only wanted the best for you. I’ve tried with you. Indulging your ridiculous hobbies. Putting up with your theatrics. How can you sit there and complain? How can you be so ungrateful?”
“Because that isn’t love, Mom!” Lizzie shouted, throwing her arms out to her sides. “Love isn’t trying to force me into some mold you’ve decided I needed to fit. Love is making a child feel safe. Encouraging them to find themselves. I’ve spent so much of my life doubting myself, hearing your words over and over every day that I’ve second-guessed who I am for years. And I’m not perfect—God, do I know how far from perfect I am. I make a lot of mistakes. But I’m trying. Does that matter to you at all? The effort I make to be better?”