Page 421 of Tis the Season to be Bullied

She’s delusional. She’s gone and lost her goddamn mind. “I—that didn’t happen. It couldn’t?—”

“Oh, you didn’t see it,” she says glibly, giving me another cold smile from behind her glass. “I made sure you were in bed already.”

“Why the hell would you?—?”

“I’d had enough of him staring at you through the crack in the door while you were showering.”

“What?” I laugh. “He never…”

Is that why I’d always felt eyes on me when we lived there? Not just when I showered. He didn’t live in the trailer with us, but he was around an awful lot. I thought it was just because he was boning Mom, but he’d been there sometimes when she was at work, too.

School was too far, so I spent the whole day in the trailer. I’d play outside sometimes, but Mom had told me it would be dangerous if I went too far. That’s why I was grateful for the big, meaty guy who always hung around. I knew he and Mom were friends because she was always so friendly around him.

“Then there was dear old Gerald. Remember him?”

I freeze.Him, I remember. He was the white-haired man who Mom dated a few years after she’d started working as a receptionist at the sawmill. He owned the farm a few miles away where we rented a room.

“What did he…?”

“Oh, him?” She purses her lips and waves a limp hand. “He was a sweetie pie. Treated us like fucking gold.”

There’s a fire in my chest.

“We’d probably still be staying there if it wasn’t for his son.”

His son. I try and bring up a memory. Sandy hair, green eyes. Attractive, in a rugged way. He worked at the sawmill with Mom. He’d drive her home sometimes if she missed the bus.

On those nights, she’d always come home pissed and reeking of beer.

“The one you used to go to the bar with?”

She glances away as she lets out a dry laugh. Not a stitch of humor there.

“You mean the one who offered me a hundred bucks so he could fuck you? And then threatened to kick us out every time I said no?”

“What?” I give her a confused smile. “That doesn’t?—”

“The only way I could keep him happy, keep us there until I had enough money to rent a new place, was to let him fuckmewhenever the mood struck him.” She cocks her head. “Better than letting him have you, right?”

The ground goes soggy under my feet.

“You’re making this up.” I look away, shaking my head. I feel like crying, but I think I’m all used up. There’s nothing left in Harper Dam—no tears, no emotions, notrust.

Her acrylic nails bite into my arm. I flinch and try pulling out of the grip but she yanks me so I’m facing her, turning the barstool and my body in one go.

“Your dad said you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen,” she whispers.

Hot prickles dance over my skin.

Mom never—never—talks about Dad. All I know is that he left us when I was really young. To this day, I don’t know why. As I got older, the reason soon became clear. Mom slept around so much that it didn’t matter that he had a daughter of his own—he left us both and never looked back. Maybe he thought I’d turn out like her, and couldn’t bear to be around when that happened.

Mom leans in even closer. Like a car wreck, I can’t look away from her red-veined eyes or her trembling eyelashes. It’s weird, but suddenly I’m looking at her—reallylooking—at her. And I don’t remember her being this old. I don’t remember those lines around her eyes. She’s wearing so little makeup these days. I guess they don’t like the whole five-dollar-hooker look down at Wayne’s company.

“Nothing ever pleased your dad.Icertainly couldn’t, that’s for sure.” Her bitter laugh paints my face with a warm, wine-tainted breath. “Should’ve known it was a curse. So pretty, no one could keep their hands off you.”

“Mom…”

She ignores my broken voice, my desperate plea.

---