Page 3 of Damnation
“Shana? No, I haven’t seen her here. But you know we don’t exactly run in the same circles.” And that’s the moment my heart stops. She’s not there. He’s not there.Please, God, just let it be a horrible coincidence.
“Are you still there?” Tiffany asks me after a prolonged silence.
“Yeah,” I answer, taking a deep breath.
“Hey, don’t panic. Everything will work out, you’ll see.” Tiff tries to cheer me up as best she can, but it’s useless and she knows that too. I tell her goodbye and end the call while the maelstrom of my thoughts overwhelms me, driving me crazy. Did he go to her? Are they together right now? I shouldn’t be surprised if he did; Shana spelled it out for me just a few hours ago: He always comes back to her. And the worst part is, this time, I’m the one who sent him.
My teeth are digging into my lip, my fingers are trembling, and my eyes are burning as I try to call him again, refusing to believe the worst. But he doesn’t answer.
Shortly thereafter, the porch light turns on, and the front door opens, my mother peering out from behind it. “Vanessa, what are you doing out there? It’s two thirty in the morning and you’re all wet; get in the house.” Her voice is thick with sleep.
“No, I’m fine out here,” I say shortly, not even turning around. I have no intention of pretending that things are okay between us, because they aren’t, at all. I’m still hurt about our argument and the insane threats she made, ordering me to cut Thomas out of my life. I’m sure she would be thrilled if she knew about my current situation with him.
“With this cold weather, you’re going to get sick,” she insists, sitting down next to me and wrapping her fleece robe around herself. I ignore her and try to call Thomas for the umpteenth time. An endlessseries of rings, one after another, until his voicemail picks up, and I am overwhelmed by a new wave of despondency.
“Listen, Vanessa…” my mother begins. “I know we’ve been at odds lately. You didn’t give me a chance this morning to explain how things are between Victor and me, and I’m very sorry you heard about him moving in from him and not from me. I just want you to understand—”
I turn and interrupt her with a miserable laugh. “‘At odds,’ you say? Think about it: without considering me in the slightest, you’ve decided to permanently move a man into our house. A man you’ve known for, what? A few months? And at the same time, you’re backing me into a corner, threatening to take everything away from me just because you don’t approve of the boy I’m seeing?”Or was seeing, anyway, I point out to myself.
“Must we go over that again?” she retorts, her face hardening.
“Would it do any good? Of course not, because you’ve already decided that Thomas is no good for me, and nothing’s going to change your mind, is it?”
“I guess I wasn’t entirely wrong about the boy, if I’m finding my daughter out here crying in the middle of the night, refusing to go inside the house,” she informs me contemptuously, talking to me as though I were still a little girl.
I snort loudly. “You think you know everything, don’t you?” I ask, glaring at her. “But it’s not true. You don’t know anything about me, and you don’t know anything about him!”
“I don’t know anything about you? Don’t make me laugh. You are my daughter; no one knows you better than me. Do you think Victor didn’t tell me about last night’s little visit?” she snaps, giving me a reproachful look. She shuts her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose while taking a deep breath, as if trying to remain calm. Then, she continues. “Warnings and advice notwithstanding, I am trying to be understanding with you, but it doesn’t work this way. You can’t just do as you please. This is my house, and the rules I set must be respected, otherwise…”
“Otherwise what?” I provoke her, tired of this constant prevarication.“Are you going to take away my cell phone? Ban me from watching TV? I’m an adult, and I wish you would start treating me like one.”
“‘An adult’?” she mimics me sarcastically. “Believe me, you’re proving yourself to be anything but adult right now!”
“Just because I’m not bending to your will?”
“No, because you still can’t tell right from wrong!”
“And you can? You, who are letting a man I’ve metoncemove into our house and forcing me to share space with him? You are taking a huge step with someone you know very little about. Does that make you wiser or moreadultthan me?”
“If I didn’t trust Victor one hundred percent, I would never have let him into our home. He is a good person.”
“So you can say that about him, but I can’t say the same about Thomas? Is my judgment of character completely irrelevant?”
“It’s not irrelevant, but I am the parent, so what I say goes.” She raises her chin with authority, firm in her convictions.
I shake my head, feeling anger burn my cheeks. “And like always, I’m the one who has to give up what I want because someone else says so, right?”
Her silence is answer enough.
“If you cared even a little about me, you would never put me in this position…my God,” I say with an exasperated sigh. “I am your daughter; you’re supposed to support me, have my back, be happy for me, and love me. Why is that so hard for you to do?”
Mom presses her hands to her chest with a pained expression on her face. “I want what’s best for you, but you’re too close to the situation to understand that it is not him. I’m sorry, but I’m not going to change my mind about that boy nor about what I expect from you!” Her overbearing tone as she says it is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
I suck in a breath through my nose, teeth gritted. “If you’re trying to make me hate you, then congratulations, you’re succeeding. But that’s nothing new, because apparently making people hate you is what you do best. Just look at Dad: He got so fed up with you, with yourtyranny, with your uncontrollable need to micromanage other people’s lives as well as your own, that he ran away the moment he had the opportunity! He made a new life for himself. A life that you are not in. And—imagine that—he’s happy! Far away from you, everyone is happy. That should tell you something, that you ruin everything you touch!” The words tumble uncontrollably from my mouth with a cruelty I would not have expected from myself.
Then, a fraction of a second later and just as unexpected, I receive a slap so hard that I can feel my cheek burning. My mouth drops open in shock just as my mother’s does the same; apparently she’s even surprised herself.
“Where is all this…evilcoming from?” she asks, her voice shaking and her eyes furious. “I didn’t think it was possible, but somehow the older you get, the more like him you become…” She studies me with disdain for what seems like an endless moment. Then she averts her eyes, adjusting her fleecy robe against her chest. Wiping a tear away with the back of her hand, she declares, “So you want to be an adult? Fine. Let’s see how long you last. I want you out of this house by tomorrow, so you can finally be happy. You’ve got a job; you’ve got money; you can make it on your own.”
