The Dysasters (The Dysasters #1)(84)

Charlotte’s phone blared the melody of Ursula the sea witch’s “Poor Unfortunate Souls” from The Little Mermaid, forcing her awake. She picked up the phone, sighing at the time. Eight a.m. sharp. At least her mother was a creature of habit. Too bad she hadn’t remembered that the night before and silenced her phone.

But because she had forgotten, and she’d never been good at ignoring this particular person, Charlotte cleared her throat and answered with her perkiest voice. “Good morning, Mother!”

“Happy birthday, Charles.”

Charlotte’s eyes went heavenward. “Mother, we’ve talked about this. Please respect the fact that my name is Charlotte.”

Her mother’s voice was hard and cold, which was only intensified by her perfect Southern-belle accent. “It is the name your father and I gave you eighteen years ago, and that is the only name I will ever call you.”

“Then I don’t understand why you call at all. Mother, I’m an adult now. I am no longer your responsibility.”

“Thanks to that meddling old woman who calls herself my mother.”

“I’ve told you before, if you speak badly of Grandma Myrtie I will not talk to you,” Charlotte said.

One of her mother’s dramatic Southern sighs floated up from the phone, trying to smother Charlotte in a blanket of old guilt and wasted dreams. “You’ve always preferred her over me—your own mother!”

But Charlotte was done being bullied by her mother. “Because Grandma Myrtie has always accepted me and loved me for who I am.”

“Don’t you mean she indulged and spoiled you?”

“No. I said exactly what I meant. Mother, I’m going to go now. I don’t think this call was about wishing me happy birthday. Sadly, I think this call was about trying to make me feel guilty for being myself.”

“I cannot believe I gave birth to a child who would grow up to be so heartless to his mother.” Emotion intensified her accent so that Charlotte thought she sounded more like a caricature than a real person.

Not that that thought was a surprise. The truth was Charlotte often thought of her mother as a caricature of the perfect antebellum Southerner—stuck purposefully in a rose-colored-glasses version of an ignorant, racist, and homophobic past.

“I realize you’re incapable of understanding who I am. I stopped trying to get you to see my side of this years ago. I only wish you would learn to respect my decisions.”

“Why, when you clearly do not respect your father and me.”

“Mother, I respect you. That’s one reason I chose to leave North Carolina. I simply don’t agree with you. You can respect me, too, without agreeing with me.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why should I respect your homosexual desires? God doesn’t!”

“Mother, I’ve told you over and over. I am not gay. I’m a woman. Liking boys has nothing to do with it.”

“Tell that to someone who didn’t change your diapers.” Charlotte’s mother gasped before continuing in a hissing whisper, “Now look what you’ve done! You made me stoop to using vulgarity.”

“I didn’t make you do anything. You chose to stoop. Just like you chose narrow-minded cruelness over compassion and understanding when I came to you with my truth.”

“Because it was all a bunch of hooey instigated by your wretched grandmother.”

“Good-bye, Mother. We won’t talk again until you can respect my decisions. I wish you a good day.”

Charlotte tapped the END CALL button and threw her phone across the bed.

I shouldn’t have answered. I should have known better. I should pull the covers over my head and cry myself back to sleep.

But for the first time in her eighteen years, Charlotte didn’t.

She didn’t cry.

She didn’t allow her mother to ruin her birthday.

Instead, she kicked off her pretty flowered comforter and went to the sliding glass door that led to her balcony. Not caring that it was raining and the wind was crazily whipping the seashell chime she’d hung the day she’d moved in, Charlotte grabbed her soft pink bathrobe, wrapped it around herself, and stepped out onto the balcony.

Stretching her arms wide, Charlotte did what she’d done every morning since she’d arrived on Galveston Island—she embraced the vast expanse of gorgeous water that stretched before her as far as she could see.

Waves crashed against the seawall and the slanting rain impaired visibility, but Charlotte loved every molecule of it. The water fed her soul, washing her clean of her mother’s anger and negativity.

It’s my eighteenth birthday and no one here knows it!

The thought didn’t make Charlotte feel sad—quite the opposite, actually. The fact that she hadn’t really made a friend yet wasn’t a big deal. Charlotte always took her time making friends. She’d learned years ago that people could be cruel. Very cruel. Especially people who claimed to be her friend. And not having any friends meant she could do exactly what she wanted to do on this big, important, life-changing birthday.

Turning eighteen meant Charlotte would be able to complete her gender reassignment surgery next summer break!

“And that is a fantastic reason for me to celebrate today—by myself—doing exactly and only what I want to do.”