Page 39

“Mom was a powerhouse,” Rhue says, his voice calm and his gaze fixed on me in a way that makes me quiver in my seat.

There’s an intensity in his eyes that I have never seen before.

Not hostile but deeply emotional. “She had the choice of going into politics from a young age, but when Dad developed his real estate empire, she decided there would be one parent at home for the kids at all times. It’s why she split her practice between the city office and the home office.

She loved to cook, though she rarely had a chance to indulge.

With Dad being mostly away or always busy, it fell on her to keep Laura and me feeling like we were part of a real family without losing her own career in the process. I used to hate that when I was little.”

“Hate what?” I reply.

“Her working.”

It makes Laura chuckle. “Rhue used to rope me into his attempts to sabotage Mom’s sessions. We were maybe five and seven or something. The deadly tummy ache.” She starts laughing.

“Oh, right. Momma! I have a monster in my tummy!” Rhue tries to keep a straight face but fails miserably and pinches the bridge of his nose.

“I don’t remember the whole excuse in vivid detail.

I only know it had something to do with a deep fried dinosaur I thought had evolved into a real one.

Dropping on my knees and everything. The patient she was with…

oh, man, hard to forget the look on his face.

Laura was hard at work on the fake tears. ”

“I was terrible,” Laura doubles over. “The poor guy, he didn’t know whether to laugh or to pity Mom for having ended up with us two!”

I can’t help but laugh, too. This is the most vulnerable Rhue has allowed himself to be since––since the time before things changed. It couldn’t have been easy. But right now, there’s a happiness in him, an ease that – despite all he’s done to me – I hope he gets to enjoy for a long time to come.

We dive into another conversation and then another. This feels nice. It feels like a journey to forgiveness. A new leaf. At least, it did until a voice interrupts us.

“What the fuck is this?” Julian Echeveria towers over us, his apparent calm only a facade for the storm brewing beneath.

The ticking muscle in his square jaw is a dead giveaway, as is the hate in his eyes—aimed directly at me and mixed with a shit-ton of outrage.

“What is this whore doing here?” he asks Rhue.

Suddenly, everything dies. The sweet melancholy of remembering their childhood and Roxanne. The taste of the ham and mozzarella croissant. The tangy aftertaste of matured cheddar dipped in fig jam. The coffee. The lemon water. The entire fucking table dies.

“Rhue?” he asks, further aggrieved by the lack of response.

Laura opens her mouth, but Julian motions for her to be quiet. It sets Rhue off. “Don’t do that!”

“Do what? What was the one and only rule I asked you both to follow?” The man is angry and then some, that much is clear. If it weren’t for the public setting, he’d probably put his hands around my neck and choke me to death.

This entire scene would be tolerable, at best, but for my mental box.

It’s torn open, and my anxiety is out in full swing.

Post-traumatic stress symptoms begin to rear their ugly heads, and I become helpless, a slender reed subject to wind, rain, sleet, and frost. I am cold and hot at the same time.

Furious and terrified. Nauseated and afraid.

Ashamed and paralyzed. There are so many sensations trying me at once that I cannot even begin to make sense of them.

My skin crawls but it also stretches and tingles.

My spine stiffens, but icy rocks tumble through it, as well, sending shivers out in freezing ripples that make it as far as my fingers and toes.

I should move. I should stand up. I should run away.

This man…he’s the nightmare monster. He’s the beast I have been trying to overcome for so long.

The root of all my troubles. The boogieman that every woman is warned against.

“Are we not allowed to socialize anymore?” Rhue asks his father. I move to get up, but his hand covers mine on the table and he squeezes in a strangely reassuring manner. Laura is shaking in her seat. “It’s just brunch. I don’t get what the big deal is.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, right now? Rhue, do you need therapy?” Julian hisses.

One quick glance around us, and I can tell that the tension is oozing outward and through the entire café.

Almost everyone inside has stopped doing anything—no more drinking or chatting or eating.

Someone’s phone chimes, but nobody has time to check that right now.

The world itself has come to a halt because of Julian Echeveria, the one man you can’t piss off. Yet Rhue seems to be…enjoying himself?

He gives Laura a quick encouraging glance. It seems to work. She sucks in a breath and straightens her back.

“Dad, please don’t be rude. Madison is our guest, and this is a public place. Surely, you don’t want us all to be embarrassed.”

“You, too, Laura? Really?” Julian snaps. It makes her jump, but she clears her throat and decides to go ahead with it, either way.

“Dad, please. It’s not how you raised us.”

“I remember your mother and I raising you not to hang around with fucking whores and home-wreckers!” Julian retorts, though I can’t help but notice his inability to look me in the eye when he spouts these shameless lies.

Rhue scoffs. “Pardon me. You’re not the only one in the family who gets to do that.”

A second passes in the most excruciating silence I have even been forced under.

My blood runs cold, and I wish I were invisible.

I wish I could just disappear, run away and never look back.

I shouldn’t have said yes to brunch. Goddammit, I should’ve stuck to my own stubbornness. I should’ve stayed home.

“Oh, fuck.” I whisper, realizing that something has snapped loose inside me.

“There will be no more of this nonsense,” Julian says.

He whips out his wallet and tosses a hundred-dollar bill on the table.

It lands on top of the camembert. There’s something deeply and utterly depraved about this image, something I will never be able to wash from the very fabric of my soul.

“This is for the meal and your trouble. Now, walk away and don’t ever bother my family again, Madison. You’ve harmed us enough.”

Oh, god. I could just say it. I could just tell the truth and fuck him over.

But the next thing Julian will do will directly affect my father.

Hell, this entire story might end with me rotting on the bottom of a lake or something.

I’m a menace to his developing political career.

This fucker is running for city council, and I am powerless.

If I speak up now, it will break Laura into little bits and pieces.

She has already tried killing herself once.

I can’t have her life on my conscience, too. One is more than enough.

“Dad, you’re making a fool of yourself,” Rhue warns him. His tone is cold and low, and the way he looks at Julian makes me want to hide under the table.

His father isn’t impressed. “For once in your life, do as you’re told. We’re leaving. Now.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Rhue replies. “And neither is Laura.”

She’s about to fall apart. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Somehow, the focus returns to me, and the spotlight burns my skin. Julian narrows his eyes.

“Is this your revenge because I didn’t want to divorce my wife over you, Madison? You try and set my own children against me? Have you no shame?”

What’s worse is that he could easily get away with this.

And he will, too, because I can’t let him hurt my family.

I’ve already awakened the dragon, and there may be some repercussion coming from tomorrow onwards.

If I stick around, it will only get worse.

As if eager to prove a point, my body takes over.

My heart starts beating too fast, and I struggle to keep up, wheezing and panting as I spiral into a full-on anxiety attack.

“I’m…I’m sorry, I need to go,” I blurt out and dash away from the table.

I forget my light blue jeans jacket, and I forget my phone, too, and my purse.

But it doesn’t matter right now. I need to get the fuck out of here before I give myself a heart attack or worse.

I don’t know when or how, but I reach a nearby street corner.

Only here do I find myself able to breathe again as I grip the iron railing beside me.

Somebody asks if I’m okay. It’s a haze. I can’t discern much around me, other than blurry shapes and melting colors. I nod feverishly. “Yeah, just... I’m fine…”

I sense hesitation, so I decide to straighten my back and at least give the impression of self-control. Maybe it’ll make them go away faster. It does. I’m alone again. Oh, god, what the hell was that? How…how will I even get myself home? I’m sitting on the steps now. An absolute mess of a woman…

My knees are too weak. I keep swallowing down bile.

My skin is nothing but prickly goosebumps, tight to the point where I fear it might tear if I make a sudden move.

So I just sit here, watching the world pass and trying to bring myself down into a calmer state.

My eyes sting. Tears flow like rivers, and I realize…

This will never get better.