Well then.
“That means, I don’t have a reason to lie here, Mia.”
“Then why are you…”
“Why am I hurting you with the truth you’ve been denying for weeks now?” she says, cutting me off. “It’s simple really. You’re in an impossible, daunting situation that I know will hurt you. And after everything my ex-husband has done, I imagine you’re filled with so much anger and pain right now. You need someone in your corner.”
In that moment, all I want to do is make myself small. Maybe then I’ll disappear. I start shaking and I know I must look pathetic in front of her. It didn’t take much for her to eviscerate me like I knew she would.
Courtney 1. This hurt, broke down bitch 0.
“I…” I start, but my voice is hoarse. “I have people in my corner.”
“Do you?” she questions. “Tell me, has your father tried to look for you after he gave up when you ran out at the police station?”
I pause, unable to answer that.
“Did he try to call you at all?” she goes on, unfolding her arms as she starts walking toward me. “Has Nathan tried being a decent father or do you suspect what I know?”
“I had my phone off…”
“It doesn’t matter, if he wanted to find you, he would have,” she says. “But then again, after last night, he probably hates you. Nathan isn’t the man you think he is.”
No! I’m his princess…
Then why did he just leave you?
I shake my head vehemently, refusing to believe for a second that my father hates me. He would never hate me, would he? He might have disappeared when I needed him the most, but he’s still my father.
“You’re wrong,” I seethe. “You’re just looking for ways to hurt me, but you’re wrong.”
“Maybe I am, Mia, but Nathan is just one side, what about that other?”
She means my mother and aunt.
“How do you sleep at night?” I whisper, looking up at her. “When you’re this ruthless, this cold…”
“You and I are the same, Mia, I see a lot of myself in you.”
“I would never destroy a teenager like this.”
“Destroy you? Mia, I’m trying to help you!” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “I’m the only one seriously concerned about you, in all facets of this mess. I want to help you sift the lies your conniving family feeds, not to mention my sons and how they used you. I want to help you see the bigger picture so you can start planning for your future.”
What?
“My story was ugly, cruel, and dark. Yours isn’t any better. I can help you navigate it all.”
“Did you also have a Wicked Witch of the West as part of your story?” I scoff, looking away from her.
She’s quiet for a second as if debating whether or not to divulge that part of herself.
“I did,” she whispers, then clears her throat as if she’s snapping out of it. “But for me, it was my mother.” I look up at her, trying to figure out what she means, but I know. I can see it on her face. “And right now, you’re about to find out that the villain in your story, is also your mother.”
“You’re lying,” I say but my voice lacks its usual conviction.
“Am I? It’s all smoke and mirrors but I think you should find that out all by your lonesome self.” Courtney says, then she moves out of the way, now leaning on the wall as if giving me way toward Nancy’s room. I look at her, feeling that vicious dread in my stomach, tightening my insides to the point of intense pain.
“Go ahead,” she says, nodding toward Nancy’s room with a solemn look on her face. “Maybe after this, you’ll want my help after all.”
Suddenly, the door toward Nancy’s room seems so far away, and now, I don’t know what to expect. Why should I trust Courtney’s word? Why is she doing this? Is there something she’ll get out of this other than satisfaction at her handiwork?
“What kind of game are you playing at?” I demand, watching her.
“The game where I back the only innocent victim in all this,” she says, looking so certain, yet her eyes are filled to the brim with pity. Pity for me, I realize.
“I’m not innocent,” I whisper, guilt slamming into me for the billionth time since my world came crushing down on me.
“You are and you know it,” Courtney says with a sigh. “You think John would go after your family because you talked to the tabloids? Seriously?”
“But Julian…”
“Is incredibly protective of his brothers,” she says. “If he pretended to be interested in you, I guarantee, it was to break you.”
Oh God.
It feels like she just took a spiral knife and twisted it inside, going deeper, breaking bones until she reaches the heaving thing in my chest, shredding it into pieces.
That’s the thing about suspicions. One way or the other, they get confirmed, bringing your worst nightmares to life.
“But Mia, focus,” Courtney says. “I assume you came here for Nancy, am I right?”
I stare at her, unable to say a word and she clarifies.
“I mean, why else would you come back to the devil’s playground after everything?” she says, her voice sounding faraway and ominous at the same time. “Go on. Go see her.”
With dread running through my now frozen veins like electricity, I slowly walk toward Nancy’s room, feeling like I’m walking over to my death. My mind rattles with a thousand and one scenarios of what I might find.
I glance back to look at Courtney, but she’s gone. It’s almost like she was never there. The faint trace of her perfume is the only tell that the Queen Devastation here was.
She planted her seeds and now, they’re about to spring up overnight and bash my head in.
Stilling myself, I reach for the doorknob to her room, the speech I’ve been rehearsing to myself now falling part like some cheap 1-ply toilet paper. With my heart in my throat, I twist the doorknob then silently step through the doorway.
The first thing that hits me is the stench of death hovering in the room like an ominous cloud, ready to rain down hell down on us. A shiver of awareness and sadness aps through me when the septic smell of medicine stings my nostrils, reminding me once more that I don’t have long with the woman I believed to be my mother all my life.
She’s dying and I’ve been an unbearable, selfish little bitch lately as a good fuck you to everything she’s done for me in classic Mia Montague, Ice Queen fashion.
God, please let her forgive me.
I force myself to ignore the chaos in my mind as I slowly take a step in the door, then look up, ready to grovel my heart out, ready to say anything that will make her forgive me but before I can say anything, I freeze as disbelief then horror slam into me like a freight train.
I blink several times but the image is still there right in front of me.
Nancy… she’s lying in her comfortable hospital bed, her frail body now reduced to nothing more than a pile of bones, but that’s not what makes me gasp as something like a riot starts simmering slowly in the pit of my stomach.
There’s someone in bed with her.
They are not naked, no. Instead, he’s wearing one of his custom-tailored suit pants, with a black silk shirt, sans tie, the buttons at the collar are open, his sleeves are rolled up, I can see a tattoo peeking out on one of his left arm… the one that’s wrapped around my mother.