Hollywood Lied

Chapter 11: Marjorie's Mom Pops By

I met Marjorie’s mom that day, and she was the complete opposite of mine. No yelling. No cutting remarks. No constant tension that made you feel like a mistake just for breathing.

She smiled gently and asked, almost casually, if I wanted to help her bake chocolate chip cookies.

I couldn’t resist.

It was the kind of offer you don’t say no to. Warmth in its purest, simplest form—hands in flour, the smell of melting chocolate filling the kitchen, laughter without judgment.

A moment of normalcy I didn’t know I was starving for.

And yes, I know what you’re thinking: “That’s The Godfather reference, right?” Yeah, maybe it was. But in that moment, it didn’t matter. It was real. It was a little escape from the chaos of my own head.

“You know, Marjorie is thinking about marrying you soon, right?” she said, her voice gentle but startlingly direct.

The words hit me so hard I choked on my white wine, spraying it across the counter like some cheap sitcom character. My face burned with embarrassment.

“I’ll clean that up,” I blurted, already reaching for a towel. I didn’t want to add even a single ounce of stress to her shoulders—not after everything she’d gone through, not after losing that jerk of a father.

The last thing she needed was me making a mess on top of it all.

“Let me,” she insisted, already snatching a wipe and sweeping away the wine—and what looked like remnants of last night’s dinner grease—without a hint of irritation.

“Oh, thank you so much!” I exhaled, feeling the tension drain from my shoulders for a moment.

That peace lasted exactly three seconds.

“The cookies!” she cried just as the oven began its shrill beeping.

“Oh, s**t!” I barked, scrambling toward it.

“Oh, s**t is right! Look at this burnt mess!” she laughed nervously, tugging the tray out. The cookies were an alarming shade of… well, feces-brown. Definitely not the warm, golden kind you’d put on a holiday card.

From the back of the house, Marj’s voice cut through the kitchen.

“How are those cookies going, you two?”

I swallowed hard. “Well, uh… there’s been a little accident.”

“You burned the cookies, didn’t you?” she called out, full of that all-knowing tone she had perfected over the years.

“Yes. I am so sorry,” I muttered, disappointment flooding me. I couldn’t even handle something as simple as baking. What the hell was wrong with me?

“It’s okay. I can make some on my own,” she teased, nudging us with a grin that softened the sting of our baking disaster. Her lightheartedness almost made me forget the charred tray still cooling on the counter.

But something inside me twisted anyway—some ugly, familiar knot of doubt—and before I could stop myself, the words slipped out.

I turned to her, voice low. “Why would you even want to marry me?”

The question hung in the air like cigarette smoke.

“I mean… I’m a junkie. A loser. I don’t have anything to offer you.”

The truth of it scraped at my throat. Most mornings I couldn’t even drag myself out of bed without feeling like the world was pressing a boot to my ribcage. And she was talking about marriage—marriage—as if I were worth something.

She stepped closer, gentle but sure, and rested her hand against my arm. “You may be a junkie, but it doesn’t have to be your defining trait,” she said, each word steady enough to anchor me for a moment.

I stared at the floor, swallowing a breath that felt impossible to get down. “I guess… I just don’t see what I have to offer,” I muttered, the sigh dragging out of me like a bag full of bricks.

She tilted her head, studying me with that maddening mixture of compassion and stubbornness she always carried.

“You offer more than you think,” she whispered. “You love hard. You care more than anybody gives you credit for. And when you let yourself? You’re kind.”

Her thumb brushed my knuckles, a small gesture that somehow felt like a lifeline.

“I’m not asking you to be perfect,” she added softly. “I’m asking you to try.”

I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers—soft, brief, careful. Her mother was only a few feet away, humming over a mixing bowl, so we kept it tame, nothing more than a tender promise whispered through touch.

Even so, the warmth of it spread through me, settling somewhere deep and aching. It satisfied, yes… but it also stirred something heavier, something that made my pulse kick against my ribs. I wanted to hold her without restraint, to feel her warmth against mine, to give her every quiet part of me I usually hid from the world.

But I swallowed it down, kept my breathing steady, and pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

She smiled—a small, knowing thing—and squeezed my hand once, as if to say later, without ever speaking the word.

She pressed me back onto the mattress with a confidence that startled me in the best way, her palms braced on my shoulders, her hair spilling around us like a curtain. The moment felt charged, but not in a way that crossed any lines—more like a rush of closeness, of trust, of two people finally letting themselves breathe around each other.

“I love you,” she whispered, her voice so soft it barely reached my ears.

“I love you more,” I murmured back, heart hammering.

“No way,” she laughed—this wonderfully ridiculous little sound that cracked through every dark thought I’d been carrying. It was goofy and bright and completely hers.

But none of that mattered.

Not in that moment, where time slowed just enough to make me feel human again.

And certainly not now, when the memory still sits warm in my chest like a small, stubborn flame refusing to go out.