Page 95 of Hold Me Today

An incredulous laugh rips from my chest. “That’s not an excuse.”

I watch as she flounders for the correct English words, because unlike her two other children, I’m not fluent in the mother tongue. I have no doubt that she knowsexactlywhat she wants to say but the language barrier, as it always has, remains a twenty-foot fence that could rival the Great Wall of China.

“You are . . . you are—”

“What?” I throw my arms up, completely at a loss. “I’m reckless? I’m impulsive? You think I need a man tocontrolme?” Controlling the way my dad has acted toward her—the way he checks her phone routinely to see who she’s talking to, how he scans her credit-card receipts and only gives her so much cash. My mom has never worked a day in her life. Twenty-something years of living in this country, never working outside the home, never doing much more than mingling with her Greek friends—it’s no wonder she looks at the world through a non-inclusive lens that keeps everyone not fully part of her communityout.

Including me, her own daughter.

My mom utters something in Greek, and I’m so sick of feelingless thanin this world, in this culture that should belong to me but doesn’t, that I snap, “InEnglish!”

It’s the first thing I say that shreds her proper posture. Her shoulders collapse and those tangling fingers rise up to press over her heart like I’ve wounded her.Don’t hug her.Don’t you dare feel bad for finally saying what you mean. My legs quiver and my hands turn clammy with guilt for being rude, and my stupid heart beats faster in a whisper of,why can’t you just love me as I am?

Head dropping back, I stare up at the ceiling and seek patience. “Just say it,” I grind out, hating the tremor in my voice that reminds me of my teenage years, “whatever you’re thinking, just say it, Mama.”

And then she shreds my heart in two: “Smart, Ermione. Katya is . . .”

I can’t move.

She keeps talking, and I hear it all like I’m in a fog. Mentions of me failing classes in school and not being able to learn Greek the way my sister and brother did. She glosses over my pink hair and my revealing clothes like footnotes in a book titled Bad Girl Mina Pappas.

All while I stand here and try not to let the tears gathering fall and give her any amount of satisfaction. I’m not dumb or stupid or an idiot or any other word my peers once hurled my way.

I have trouble withwords, no matter the language.

It doesn’t make me incapable of learning. It doesn’t mean that I absorb knowledge like a sieve, none of it sticking long enough to make a difference.

And even if Iwasthat way, it shouldn’t matter. My mom, my dad, they should still love me because I’mtheirs.

The tears fall and I’m helpless to stop them.

“Ah,Ermione,” my mom croons, coming to her feet and crossing over to me. Her arms wrap around my shoulders like she can make me feel better after tearing my soul in half. “It is okay—naí?Babaand I, we only want you to find a nice—”

“No!”

I shrug my way out of her hold, ducking under her arms before I can sink into their hypocritical, judgmental warmth.

“Ermione—”

With a hand slashing through the air, I cut my mother off. Her green eyes, so unlike my brown ones, stare back at me, completely bewildered. “I have dyslexia, Mama.” I curl my arms around myself. “Dyslexia. It’s not the plague. It does not mean that I’m incapable of taking care of myself!”

She falls back a step. “A husband—asýzygos—will help you.”

“Yeah? The same wayBabahelps you?”

“Naí, koritsi mou,” she says it so pleasantly that I want to scream.

Instead I do what I should have done thirty minutes ago. I point to the door behind her and swallow down every last bit of fight I have within me to rebel. There’s no point. She’s stuck in her ways, and I’m . . .exhausted. “I’m going to bed, Mama. We’ll talk about this when I get back.”

I hold myself ramrod still as she ambles over and kisses me on the forehead. “Kali nichta, paidí mou.” Good night, my child.

I wait until the door shuts behind her before I fly into motion. I throw clothes and my blow dryer and shoes all into my suitcase. It all goes in, one by one, and on a random decision, I duck beneath my bed and dig through the bin of old notebooks until I find that stupid diary to GSN. I toss that one in, too, because Nick promised me a fireplace and it’s time to see all those suffocating emotions go down in flames.

Only once I’m done, my suitcase bumping down the staircase behind me, do I call the one woman in the world who knows all that I am and still loves me anyway.

“Mina,” Aleka Stamos greets when she picks up on the second ring, “it’s late,kouklamou. What’s wrong?”

“Can I stay with you tonight?”

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