Page 78 of Let the Game Begin

I was going to keep using her just like I did with all the rest of them. I was going to touch her again, kiss her again, fuck her again and again. And then I would tell her again that sex was all that could ever be between the two of us. She would get my body and nothing more.

I went back home to study, because I was in my last year of undergrad, and despite all my issues, I was still hoping to graduate and one day become an architect.

I crossed through the big foyer and stopped when I spotted my mother in an armchair in front of the elegant fireplace. She stared at the flamesdevouring the wood inside while, outside, hard winds bent the trees and a light rain began to patter on the immense windows of the house.

I got closer for a better look and saw that her blond hair had been messily pulled up into a bun, and her cheeks were streaked with mascara all the way down to her chin. She had been crying; she was completely devastated. I took another step forward and stared at her in shock.

“When were you planning to tell me?”

I stopped. What was she talking about? There were a lot of things I didn’t tell my mother. I had stopped trying to be an affectionate son at the age of ten, and I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d hugged.

“What are you talking about?” I asked flatly, trying not to display any fear or concern. But when my mother turned her blue eyes on mine, I saw the deep grief in them.

“Lots of things, Neil.” She got to her feet, and for one wild moment, I thought she was referring to me and Selene.

But no. There was no way she knew what had happened between me and her partner’s daughter. Between me and the girl who I was supposed to treat like a younger sister, who I was never supposed to even remotely consider fucking selfishly to feed my own ego.

My mother stood in front of me, looking up. Her high heels weren’t quite enough to let her face reach my height, but her disappointed look surely did. It pinned me where I stood.

“I’m talking about your sister’s near-rape and Carter Nelson winding up in a hospital bed, comatose,” she said, her voice trembling and her eyes bright with anger. “Why didn’t any of you tell me? Why did you go off half-cocked like usual without even informing me?” She scrubbed her face with her hands and started pacing around the living room.

The flickering firelight caught my attention, and then it was me standing there, staring into the fireplace, looking for an answer that I couldn’t give her.

“Why? Why do you always have to screw everything up?” she shouted at me, and in the flames, I thought I could see the child version of myself. The Neil who was constantly being scolded by his mother because he didn’t want to go to school. The one whose classmates avoided him because hewas violent. The one whose teachers hated him because he was rebellious and impossible to discipline. The one who hid in the corner of his room under the window because he needed to get away from the world and that was the only place he felt safe.

I saw the Boy I had been dragging along behind me for all these years.

“No, you’re the screwup,” I murmured and then turned to look back at her. My mother flinched as though I’d slapped her when she saw my cold stare, full of all the anger that was slowly reemerging from the depths of my damaged soul. I walked purposefully toward her, watching as her eyes widened in fear.

“You are the one who doesn’t notice anything that isn’t about your life, your work, your partner. You’re the one who is completely fucking blind and deaf!” I shouted, just a few inches from her face. I squeezed my hands into fists at my sides and felt the anger flowing immediately into my veins. My heartbeat was throbbing in my temples.

I was never able to deal with the anger; it was my worst enemy. My own mother was standing right there in front of me, but I could have hurt her just then like she were total stranger. I could have destroyed her, torn her to pieces, annihilated her. Fortunately, I still had a modicum of rational thought and was able to control myself.

“Your sister is sick.” She burst into tears, and I felt it like a blow to my chest, my heart pounding faster. Not because I cared about my mother, but because I loved my sister. Her pain was my pain.

“Sick how?” I muttered in a small voice. My mother continued to sob, wiping a trembling tear from her chin with the back of one hand.

“She has severe insomnia. She never wants to go to school. She can’t focus on homework. She doesn’t want to go out with her friends, because she keeps flashing back to the attack.” She covered her face with her hands and slumped down on the sofa, weeping like a little girl. She didn’t look anything like the famous career woman immortalized by the New York tabloids. Instead, she looked like a woman who had been destroyed by the brutality of life and cruelty of human beings.

I’d known Chloe wasn’t doing well, but I hadn’t realized it had gotten that bad.

“What?” I was incredulous, incapable of imagining my Little Koala trapped in her room facing such a huge monster all by herself. But I understood… I understood like no one else ever could.

“She’s going through so much.” My mother got up from the couch and pulled a note from the pocket of her elegant slacks, handing it to me. “I’d like you to place a call to Dr. Lively, Neil. I want Chloe to meet with him.”

Did she want my sister to wind up like me? I couldn’t let her do that to Chloe. I just couldn’t.

“Are you kidding me?” My mother had no idea what it felt like to walk into a psychiatrist’s office and be made aware of just how much was wrong with you. Nor how it felt to get loaded up with psychotropic meds.

“I just want to get her some help, and I want you to take her.” She drew closer, trying to touch me, but I backed away. I hated being touched without my consent.

“You just want to dump her on a shrink like you did with me!” I snapped angrily.

It was the truth. I was a kid with problems, sure, but my mother hadn’t hesitated for a moment before sending me straight to the fucking psychiatrist to get psychoanalyzed and pumped full of drugs. They dulled my senses and kept me docile, like an animal under sedation.

“That is not true, and you know it. You needed help. You still need help.” She brought her shaking hand to her mouth, stifling a sob, but I remained motionless, just staring at her.

She was so full of shit.