Hollywood Lied

Chapter 9: Parental Visit

My parents suddenly decided that this was the perfect time to pay me a visit. I hadn’t told them about Marjorie—and I sure as hell hadn’t mentioned our shared usage of h****n. If they found out, they’d both have aneurysms on the spot.

I paced the apartment, heart rattling in my chest, trying to imagine how I was going to hide all of this. The coke was still thundering through my bloodstream, making the walls tilt and breathe like the place was alive. Great timing, Mom and Dad, I muttered under my breath, running a shaking hand through my hair.

The worst part? They always showed up unannounced when my life was at its absolute lowest, like they had some twisted sixth sense for disaster. And right now, disaster was sitting everywhere—in the air, in my veins, in the damn carpet.

I glanced at Marjorie.

“We need to clean this place up,” I whispered. “Fast.”

Her pupils were still blown wide, but she nodded with a frantic determination. Even in her state, she understood that my parents walking in on this scene would be a nuclear-level event.

Outside, I heard the elevator ding.

Too late.

They rang the doorbell and I anxiously opened the door. It was an oak frame with wear and tear from all the years of use.

“Hey, Ma,” I nearly muttered.

“Don’t you ‘hey, ma’ me,’ Cody Heller,” she huffed, every syllable laced with irritation. She was one of those formal pieces of s**t who demanded ma’am and sir like it was the law of the land. It was aggravating as hell.

She said my full name like it was a curse she’d been forced to memorize—an exhale of pure annoyance. Honestly, she was always pissed about something. If there wasn’t a fire to put out, she’d start one just so she had something to complain about.

And the wildest part? I still had no idea how my father put up with her. The man had the patience of a saint or the emotional range of a brick. Maybe both.

I forced a smile anyway, the tight kind that hid more than it showed. “Good to see you too, Mom.”

Her eyes scanned the apartment like she was searching for evidence of a crime.

And, well… if she looked hard enough, she’d find several.

“Oh, my! You both smoke?” she gasped, clutching her pearls the way only a woman with a permanent stick up her spine could. Her eyes were locked on the Marlboro pack sitting on Marjorie’s nightstand like it was a live grenade.

I felt the words f**k off crawl all the way up my throat, burning for release. But I swallowed them down because nothing good ever came from saying exactly what I felt to her. That never ended well. Not once.

Marjorie froze beside me, guilty by association, while my mother stared at the cigarettes as if they were proof of my lifelong moral decay.

I forced the fakest smile imaginable.

“Yeah, Mom. Shocking, right?”

Inside, though? I was already done with this conversation.

“I thought you had quit at twenty-one,” my father finally said, his voice low and heavy, the way thunder sounds right before it cracks open the sky.

He was always the quiet one—quiet but violent, a combination that kept me on edge my entire childhood. He never needed to yell; a single look from him could make me feel like I’d done something unforgivable. And if he did speak? It was usually to remind me I wasn’t worth the air I breathed.

Memories flickered through my mind like a stuttering film reel.

That time he withheld my food unless I kissed his damn shoes.

God, those ugly loafers—brown, creased, smelling faintly of mildew and whatever hell his job dragged through the house. I remembered kneeling, trembling, pressing my lips against them because I was too terrified to refuse. Too terrified to say what I really thought.

They always told me I had “nearly destroyed their marriage,” that I was despicable, like some curse they’d been forced to drag around for eighteen years.

I cleared my throat, trying to keep my voice steady.

“Yeah,” I muttered, “well… things change.”

Marjorie squeezed my hand under the table, a quiet lifeline. My parents, meanwhile, stared at me like I had personally resurrected every disappointment they’d ever felt.

And honestly? I felt twelve years old again.

“Marj, would you please make my parents an avocado melt?” I asked, trying not to sound as nervous as I felt.

Both of my parents perked up like I’d just announced dinner service at a five–star restaurant. They were extremely picky eaters—painfully picky. Someone once told me it was an autism thing, but honestly, I always chalked it up to them having the culinary curiosity of damp cardboard. Unless the food was fried, they wouldn’t touch it.

If it sizzled? If it crackled?

They’d pounce on it like starving hyenas.

My dad’s all–time favorite meal was fried chicken—extra crispy, soaked in enough oil to make a cardiologist pass out. My mother’s weakness was fried dumplings. As a result, our kitchen growing up was stocked with oil like we were preparing for the apocalypse. Other families collected spices or fine china. We collected gallon jugs of cooking oil.

We were like P. Diddy—except instead of having a thousand bottles of baby lotion, we had a hundred bottles of canola oil lined up like soldiers.

Yeah… I know. Maybe too soon. My bad.

My father’s obsession was so intense that if my mother ever forgot to buy the canola oil, he would lose his mind. Not just yelling—physical. He’d wrench her into chokeholds, knuckles white, squeezing until she begged for release. It was a ritual of dominance, the kind you never forget, even if you desperately want to.

If you’re reading this, Dad?

Straight to hell.

Marjorie sliced the avocados with a steady hand, layering them over the warm chicken she’d crisped to perfection. The smell drifted through the room—rich, buttery, familiar. She plated everything neatly, cleaner than any server at that rundown diner ever managed, and carried it over to the table with a small, nervous smile.

Our table.

It wasn’t much—scarred wood, one wobbly leg, a couple of rings from coffee cups neither of us ever remembered setting down—but the moment she set the plates there, it felt like more than just furniture. It felt claimed, lived-in, ours.

“Shall we eat, Mother?” I asked, letting the irritation bleed through just enough to make my point. Her goddamn obsession with etiquette always made me feel like some stranger passing through her life instead of her son. She looked at me with that tight-lipped disapproval she’d perfected over the years, the kind that said I was still the runt of the family no matter how old I’d gotten.

She sat down anyway, smoothing the napkin across her lap as though we were at some charity gala instead of my cramped apartment. My father followed, heavy steps and heavier silence. Marjorie lingered beside me, her hand brushing mine for half a second—just enough to steady me before the storm.

“Umm… sure,” I muttered, caught completely off guard. My eyes flicked toward Marjorie, then back to my father, who was already giving me that expectant look—the one that felt like a spotlight and a choke chain at the same time.

“Who should say it?” I asked, hoping—praying—that he’d volunteer himself for once.

But of course not.

“I want you to say it, son,” he declared, puffed-up pride swelling in his voice as if he’d just knighted me. He always did this—shoved me center stage without warning, without mercy. He even put me on the spot at Grandma’s funeral, and she was the only one in the family who ever treated me like a human being.

My stomach twisted. Marjorie gave me a tiny, encouraging nod. My mother folded her hands primly, waiting for me to perform. And my father leaned back, satisfied that he’d once again engineered the most awkward moment imaginable.

I cleared my throat, scrambling for words that didn’t sound entirely blasphemous—or furious.

“Dear Father, we come before thee to offer our gratitude for this generous meal. Please help us to be wise in our lives and not take the easy route. No matter what. Amen,” I struggled out the words. I had never really prayed to a higher power. I never saw the need to. Religion has too many goddamn rules. I consider myself a libertine. I believe certain laws deserve to be broken.

“Very good prayer, son. He is proud of you,” he said, patting me on the back.

The gesture should have felt warm, even kind—but it didn’t. Deep down, it landed with the weight of condescension. Like I’d just passed some arbitrary test I hadn’t wanted to take in the first place.

I nodded stiffly, forcing a smile that didn’t reach my eyes, and turned my attention to the food in front of me. The table was quiet now, but the tension hummed beneath the surface, impossible to ignore.

“How do you like the food?” I asked, already regretting the words the moment they left my mouth.

Of course, that was a mistake.

My mother immediately launched into her usual tirade—dry chicken, not enough salt, the bread slightly undercooked, the avocado too firm. Every sentence dripped with irritation, each complaint stacked neatly atop the last like bricks in some endless wall of nagging.

I sat there, jaw tight, nodding along, knowing there was no escape. It wasn’t about the food. It never was. It was about something else, some eternal dissatisfaction she carried like a badge of honor, and I was just the unlucky audience.

It was around 8 P.M. when they finally left, the apartment sinking back into quiet. My mother planted one last kiss on my forehead—a gesture I recognized instantly. She’d done it a hundred times when I was a kid, and it had always annoyed the living hell out of me.

Even now, years later, it felt the same: overbearing, suffocating, a reminder that no matter how old I got, some things never changed. I rubbed the spot where her lips had pressed, feeling a mix of nostalgia and irritation simmering in my chest.

“That was a doozy,” I painfully sighed. I honestly wouldn’t have minded if I was to die at that moment. Everything felt trite and pointless.

So I turned to my best friend instead.

And no—it wasn’t Gilbert.

It was the h****n.

The only thing that never left me, never argued, never demanded I get my act together. It wrapped itself around me like a warm blanket, whispering that everything was fine, that none of it mattered, that I didn’t have to feel a damn thing if I didn’t want to.

Everyone else eventually got fed up—my friends, my coworkers, even the people who swore they’d always be there. One by one they peeled away, sick of the chaos, the outbursts, the way every good moment with me eventually turned to ash.

But the h****n never complained.

Never walked out.

Never judged.

Why would I care about losing people when I could just blur it all out, erase the edges of the world, and pretend none of it ever happened?

That was the trap.

And I fell into it willingly.