Chapter one:The Glass on the Wall
977 Words
I throw the glass before I decide to throw it.
Missed her head by an inch. Wine exploding across the wall behind her. On the paint. The floor. Probably the ceiling. I don't check.
She doesn't even blink.
"Really." My laugh isn't a nice laugh. "I could've taken your eye out and you'd still be standing there with that face."
"Sophia, sit down."
"No." Second glass, still in my hand. She notices. Steps back. Smart. "Every guy. Every single time, you turn into somebody I don't recognize."
"That's not fair,I'm your mom"
"Fair?" I set the glass down before I do something I can't take back. "Is it fair I heard it from Aunt Carol? My own aunt knew before I did."
Her face does the guilty thing. I've watched it happen after every bad decision she's made since I was old enough to count.
"I was going to tell you tonight."
"You're telling me now because Carol slipped and you panicked. Don't lie to me on top of everything else."
"Fine." Arms crossed. "I'm marrying Richard tomorrow."
I laugh again. Loud. Because there's no other sane response.
"Tomorrow."
"Small ceremony. Just us and a judge."
"Intimate. Love that for you." I dig my fingers into my eyes. "And you tell me the night before, why?"
"Because I knew you'd react exactly like this."
"You met him three months ago at a wine expo, Mom. Three months. I've had crushes that lasted longer than your engagement."
"When you're my age, you know faster."
"You said that about Gary. The one who owed money to actual criminals."
"This is different."
"It's always different until it isn't."
She goes quiet. Quiet is worse than yelling. She only goes quiet when I'm right and she hates it.
"I'm doing this for us." Softer now. "Richard has land. Money. Stability. I can stop working two jobs. You can go to a school that isn't falling apart. I'm making things better."
"By moving us in with a stranger."
"By giving you a future I could never afford alone."
"I didn't ask for a future. I asked for a mother who tells me things before Aunt Carol does."
"I'm telling you now."
"The night before! Like I'm furniture you're relocating. Not a person. Not somebody with an actual life here."
"You'll have a better one there."
"I don't want a better one. I want mine." My voice cracks and I hate it. "I have a job. I have Priya. We've known each other since diapers, there's a photo of us somewhere, Mom still has it."
"You'll make new friends."
"You don't replace people like a phone case!" I'm shouting now and I can't stop it. "You don't get to decide my whole life needs a new zip code because some guy owns a hillside."
"He's a good man."
"You always think that. Right up until you don't."
Her jaw locks. "That's cruel."
"Is it cruel or is it just true? Name one time it worked out. One."
Nothing. She's got nothing, and we both know it.
"I have to do this." Quieter still. "You'll understand one day."
"For our sake." I grab my jacket, shove my arm in wrong, sleeve inside out. Don't care. "You know what today is."
Her face changes. Fast. Like a switch flipped behind her eyes.
"Sophia. Don't."
"Four years." That's all I give her. All I need to give her. She knows what those four years mean the way you know an old scar by touch, even in the dark. "And this, today, is when you pick to do it again. New house. New man. Pack a bag. Don't ask questions."
"This is nothing like before."
"You don't know that. Nobody ever knows that. Not until it's too late to matter."
"That's not fair to him."
"I don't care about being fair to a man I've met zero times." I'm at the door, jacket half on, one boot untied. "I care about being fair to me. For once."
"Where are you going?"
"Away from here. Great party, by the way. Really nailed the vibe."
"It's pouring, Sophia."
"Good. I needed a shower. This conversation was disgusting."
I slam the door before she can answer. The rain hits like it's got a personal problem with me too, cold straight through in seconds. Boot still untied. I don't stop. I walk fast, past the Nguyens' broken gutter, past the fire hydrant Priya and I painted like a strawberry in eighth grade because we were bored and unsupervised and thirteen and thought we had time.
None of it's mine after tomorrow. Not the hydrant. Not the gutter. Not even my own last name, probably.
My phone buzzes. I already know. I check anyway because I'm an i***t.
**Mom:** please come back, we leave at 8am
Cool. Great. Love that for me.
I hit the gas station three blocks over, the one with the flickering sign missing its S, so it just says GA TATION, forever asking a question nobody wants to answer. I duck under the awning and wring out my ponytail like that fixes anything.
Four years. Long enough to build a life out of just the two of us. Long enough I stopped flinching at raised voices. Stopped checking the driveway before I walked in. I don't think about before. Not tonight. Some doors you keep shut on purpose, and you don't apologize for it.
I zip the jacket the rest of the way, tuck my hands under my arms, and decide right there, under a broken sign, that whatever's waiting at that vineyard, whatever "better life" she's decided we need, I'm not doing the thing where I need somebody to save me.
Did that already. Waited for it once.
Learned the hard way that mostly, nobody comes.
I've got no idea yet how fast that's about to change.
- Writer
