I roll my eyes. "Nice to see you too."
"He's very busy these days," she mutters to Ash, still pacing. "Such a man of the world. Look at him—thinks he's a big swinging dick, doesn't he?" She freezes, tipping Ash to the side as if a freaking toddler could appraise me for this very specification. "Not everyone inherits a big fuck-off chunk of life insurance, I guess."
Ash blows a bubble at me, his big brown eyes widening with curiosity.
I drape my suit jacket over the purple velour couch and glance around the new apartment. Mom's been here a few months now and the place is very luxe, very modern chic; pretty sure she came into some life insurance of her own. There's so much...beige.
"I did that for him, you know," she goes on, pacing again. She navigates stuffed toys and building blocks with ease. "I made sure he came into a little cash. All it took was a plastic bag and a—"
"Mom!" I don't mean to shout, but she brings it out in me. It's why I avoid her. "He's a kid, for fuck's sake. Don't say that shit to him."
Ash recoils into her arms and buries his squidgy face in her peach cashmere sweater. Something inside me blisters and grows taut, preparing to snap at the next sharp word.
It's best I change the subject. "Did you see I'm bidding to buy from Murdoch?"
"Whoop de fucking do, Aeron."
"Right." I gulp. Mom is never impressed by my achievements; I should stop coming here like a puppy desperate for approval. No, desperation isn't the right word; it's a slow burn in my veins, a heat that makes my limbs feel boneless and heavy at the same time.
"You know what I did see? That ginger whore you're dragging around these days." She lets off a bitter laugh, stroking Ash's cheek as if petting a kitten. "How long before I have to pay off her folks, huh?"
"I paid you back every penny," I say through my teeth.
"I guess that makes it better." She laughs harder.
Yeah. Because the whole Fordham scenario has always been hilarious. Nothing about losing my canvas—my only outlet—was ever funny.
Mom plants a kiss on Ash's head. "You're not gonna to be such a pansy, are ya, sweetie? You're gonna be a contender."
Ash stares at me from beneath his mussed-up shock of hair. I know how soft that hair is; some nights, he falls asleep on my shoulder and I rest my chin on his head just to make sure he's still breathing. Something about that kid makes me feel peaceful. He's not like me and Mom. He's untampered with, unchanged, and the more he looks at me, the more he seems to say, what did this crazy bitch do with my daddy?
I don't know, I want to tell him. But I've got a pretty fucking good idea because she did the exact same thing to mine.
"You know what your brother is, Ashley? A disappointment." She rests her strange, spaced-out Mom eyes on me. "A failure. I mean, I tried with him. I really did. But there's something not right about that kid."
Anger crawls along my skin. "I could say the same about you, Mom."
"His problem is, he doesn't know how to hide. Keeps climbing out of his shell like something's fucking chasing him—"
"Mom. I am asking you to stop."
"And he doesn't know what he cost me. All those lessons, I worked so hard...and hey, pretty boy, you had potential, didn't you? But not as much as little Ash here."
"You shouldn't mess with him," I grind out. My temper scrapes broken nails down my spine; it wants to come out and play.
"Shouldn't, shouldn't, shouldn't...what about the things I want, Aeron?" She sighs theatrically. "Look at you, getting all worked up. You were always too quick to fly off the handle."
The handle's pretty fucking slippery, let me tell you.
"Well?" She bats her eyelashes at me, like I'm one of her unfortunate black widow boy toys. "You have nothing to say for yourself?"
My vision blurs. Furniture slides back and forth; I feel drunk and shivery.
"Yeah." My voice cracks. "You need to put Ash down."
#14
Empathy (noun): when feeling someone else's emotions is safer than feeling your own
Twenty six people saw Rachel Fordham shoot herself in my lobby. The police don't have to question us for long.
I held my broken Leo while she told them that Rachel was her ex-girlfriend; that they'd argued since she left Rachel for me. The security camera footage will fit her story, and the cops took that, too. I held on to my temper and my jealousy and my very American curse words while Leo detailed the intricacies of their relationship, though every nerve in my body was on the war path, every muscle twitching to hit something, cut something, savage it all because what the fuck, grasshoppers?
What the actual motherfucking fuck is going on?