“Mia, I know you must hate me, and I know I’m probably the last person you want to be talking to right now,” she says.
“You got that right, so why don’t you save the rest of what you want to say for someone that actually cares.”
I stare up at her, but I can see the resolve in her eyes, and I know, I’m not going anywhere until she’s done with me.
“You’re going to want to hear what I have to say, I guarantee that.”
“What makes you so certain?” I scoff. “Everything you’ve ever said to me has all been dipped in cheap insults, mockery, and life changing truths. I doubt whatever this is, is any different.”
She shifts her weight from one foot to the other, then she folds her arms delicately like she’s settling in for a battle I want no part in.
“Mia, I know we got off on the wrong foot,” she starts, and I reel back like her words were a physical blow. Did she just that?
“The wrong foot?” I start as anger, sharp and intense, pulses through my system, awakening a side of me I didn’t want to feel—hurt. “Could you tell me, where do you get the nerve to stand there looking all high and mighty, talking shit like that all while acting like the victim in this fucked up story?”
“Mia, I…”
“How is destroying my life, revealing truths you had no right to, buying my childhood home just to rub it in my family’s face, the wrong foot, Courtney?” I grit out, trying my hardest not to let her see the pain or that I’m close to breaking down in tears. So, I bite down on my tongue, hard, until the metallic taste of blood fills my mouth, holding on to the anger. “What part of that is the wrong foot?”
This hurts. A lot.
All I want to do is scream, but I can’t. Not here. I still have a plan. I need to focus on that for now.
“You’re right, I don’t have the right to stand here and try to atone for what I did, but I am sorry.”
“I don’t need nor care for your bleeding apologies, Courtney.”
How is she the mother of the two boys who’ve managed to snake their way into my heart, only to sink their poisonous fangs in there and now, I’m rotting from within?
“I know you hate me and with good reason, but the thing is, right now, this messed up situation you’re in, it reminds me a lot of a dark hole I was in. A personal hell of sorts that I was never able to get out of for years and now, years later, I still have trauma and scars from it.”
It’s the way she says it, her voice now softer, yet her eyes grow harder like she’s remembering a kind of pain that changed her life, that makes me pause. I can see the shadows in her eyes—or maybe, she lets me see them.
Huh? What game is she playing at?
“You and I are nothing alike.”
“Maybe,” she says, eyeing me like she knows I’m a fraud, pretending to be strong yet I’m scared shitless right now. “Or maybe we’re more alike than you think.”
“I doubt that.”
“I was fifteen years old and in love with a man who only saw me as a means to an end, a business contract if you will, something that’s part of the Fitzgerald legacy and will not change for anything or anyone.”
What? Arranged marriages?
“Yes,” Courtney says, and I realize I just muttered that out loud. “Arranged marriages. You do see where this is going and how you don’t fit in this, right?”
I do… my God, he was never going to be mine, was he? But I stand up tall, straightening my shoulders and hold on to my pride.
“I don’t care what your sons do, or who they’re tragically betrothed to marry, Courtney” I whisper, and she shakes her head, choosing not to address that, letting me suffer in my stupidity. “And honestly, I don’t give a shit so why are you telling me any of this?”
“I’m just trying to do the right thing. I wish I had someone to warn me when I was your age.”
The right thing? The nerve of this woman.
“Is that what you tell yourself each night so your guilty conscience can let you sleep?” I say softly, tilting my head to the left. “Do you tell yourself that what you’re doing is right, even when you know it’s wrong—boarder-line evil at most?”
“Well, I lost my conscience when I got married to John and he brought home a child that wasn’t mine to raise, so, for twenty-two years I’ve managed to sleep, very well in fact. It’s amazing the medical advances they’re making these days.”
My jaw drops to the floor and I stare at her mutely, but she doesn’t change her impassive, cold facial expression. The sharp look in her eyes is still the same, like she just announced that the weather is perfect for a good ole broom-riding session like the Wicked Witch of the West she is.
“That shocked you, huh?” she scoffs. “I thought it might.”
I watch her silently as my mind races with a thousand questions. Who is she talking about? Who isn’t her child? Why is she telling me of all people? Is she playing me?
“Why are you telling me all this?” I demand, dread pooling in the pit of my stomach.
“Maybe I just wanted to confess the truth to someone else,” she says, making me scoff. How stupid does she think I am?
“I’m not a priest,” I deadpan, but she goes on like I never said a word.
“Or maybe you deserve to know that there’s more going on here than you think.”
Silence falls over us for a few seconds. We stare at each other and I know she’s waiting for me to react, to say something, to see if I’ve bitten the damn bait. For all I know, she might be lying right now, weaving a dramatic tale just to mess with me.
But if she is, what is her end goal? What is she looking to achieve? To break me? I’m already broken. To get me to stay away from her sons? That’s a given after everything that has happened.
“You look suspiciously calm for a woman admitting to raising a child that wasn’t hers,” I mutter, watching her. “I still don’t get why you’re telling me all of this.”
“I’ve had years to stew over it, but then again, that’s the beauty of money, you can pay someone else to do the shit you don’t want to do.”
This is the second time she has mentioned money tome. Why is that?
“Yeah, I’m sure you can do whatever the hell you want. Like raise the bastard child you wish you could get rid of, isn’t it?”
But who is it though? Could it be Aiden? Obviously, Julian is her son, they have the exact same eyes. Hard, unyielding, sometimes even cold and intense. While hers make me feel like she’s playing me, her son’s make me feel like I’m about to get lost in a dense, ever-green forest, where only he knows the lay-out, the traps and where his demons are.
“Well, I will admit, the beginning was a bit…rough,” she says, looking strangely uncomfortable, unable to look me in the eyes. A whining kind of buzz starts ringing at the back of my head as I stare at her.
“Why do I feel like you have done a whole lot more shit than just fester in your silent resentment over your husband’s continued infidelity; before and after you as it seems?”
A heavy silence falls over us and I shake my head, feeling light-headed, the answer so clear right in front of me.