I cringed the moment her furious voice met my ears. I pulled away from Royal’s warm body, our eyes colliding and our bodies sagging against one another. We both knew what was coming. It was inevitable, like a twister barreling down the countryside. You couldn’t escape the mayhem it would cause.
“Don’t let her break you down, Noelle. Promise me you will give it right back to her, the same way you did to Sasha today. Promise me!” His voice was deeper, angrier, and darker than it had been previously.
I stood from the bed, straightening my shoulders. I could do this. I could face her down. There was nothing else left that she could say that would or could break me. She may be my mother, but that didn’t mean I had to let her scream at me or try and bring me down every chance that she got.
“If I have to come up there and get you, it won’t be good for you.” I could see the fire shooting from her mouth as she yelled up the stairway. I slipped an emotionless mask onto my face. I couldn’t let her beat me down to nothing, not again.
Not ever.
“I’m coming,” I shouted down the stairs making sure she could hear me. “However, I refuse to talk to you if you’re going to do nothing but scream at me or talk down to me,” I spoke trying to mask the slight twinge of fear that filled my belly as I descended the stairs, rounding the corner and taking notice of her displeased expression.
I could feel Royal right behind me, his front almost brushing against my back. His presence calmed me, saved me from the wicked witch below.
“Good, you brought the trouble maker with you as well.” Her eyes penetrated through him. The look of disgust for Royal was clear on her face.
“If by trouble maker you mean me, then yeah.” I could hear the humor in Royal’s words, my eyes not missing the wolfish grin he gave her. I needed to remind her just of who this conversation was about. She was always putting blame on others, blame where it didn’t deserve to be put.
“Royal has nothing to do with this. The fight was all me. I’m the one that didn’t just walk about. He only tried to stop me. You should be thanking him if anything.” I was certain she was blinded by her own personal rage toward him. She probably didn’t even hear a word I just said because she was too busy thinking about all the ways she could pin something on Royal, or find another reason I wasn’t good enough. My mother wanted me to be something that I wasn’t, and all I wanted was to be me. To be free like a sparrow soaring through the night sky.
“Royal has everything to do with this, and I don’t believe for a single damn second that he was trying to put an end to any fight. Fighting is all the punk knows how to do.” Pure hatred dripped from her words. The hate she had for Royal pissed me off more than the way she looked, acted, and treated me.
“No…” I pushed further in front of him, stepping into my mother’s face, and blocking his view of her, or what I could of it.
I couldn’t listen to her put blame on him anymore, not when her beef was with me. I was no longer the perfect child she wanted, and that had nothing to do with Royal. It had everything to do with me.
“Yes, Noelle. You’re blinded by his charm, but no worries, sweetie, because I can see him for the worthless piece of shit he is…” She was like a snake slithering through the grass, waiting to strike her victim blindly. “It’s really no wonder Mark left his mother for me.” There it was, the strike, the venom sinking into Royal’s body. I couldn’t do anything to stop him as he pushed past me and got straight into my mother’s face.
“You don’t get to talk about me or my mother.” The Royal I grew to know was gone, and in his place was a much meaner, darker man. His fists were clenched so tightly at his sides that the veins in his arms bulged. He was holding himself back, but why?
To protect you.
“It’s the truth, Royal. Have you ever asked your father why he is with me and not your mother?” My mother baited him. Did I want Royal to lay her out?
“That’s enough, Viviana, he doesn’t know the whole truth yet and you have no fucking right speaking to my son the way you are. You are doing nothing but trying to instigate a fight.” Mark’s voice forced all of us to swing our attention to him, still Royal didn’t care if his father heard what he had to say.
“I don’t give a fuck what you think you have that my mother doesn’t, didn’t, or whatever...” he seethed. Viviana knew exactly what wounds were fresh on him, and she did whatever she could to sink her teeth into them. Maybe that very thought was what made me stop her from her assault against him or maybe I finally realized that I actually cared about Royal on a deeper level than I previously thought.