Page 36 of Paint Eater
Nisha
Your boy is cute
Logan
Shut the fuck up
Logan made a disgruntled sound as she responded with a winky face. She loved to poke her nose in his business.
Nisha
Love you
Logan
Love you too
He snorted, muting his phone and placing it on the desk again. He couldn’t deny that Jay was right—theydidhave a strange relationship. She was the closest friend he’d ever had. The only person from his world—the world of the wealthy and affluent—he got along with.
Granted, he never reallytriedto get along with the people his parents forced him to interact with, but, from experience, all of them seemed to be hand-picked to piss Logan off.
Logan stiffened as he heard the front door unlock and then shut, followed by the unmistakable voice of his mom. He forced his attention back to his screen, trying to actually make sense of what he’d last written in the essay he was supposed to be working on.
The door swung open without a knock, and Logan didn’t have to look sideways to know it was his mom in the doorway. He did anyway, though. His mom did not tolerate rudeness, and there was nothing ruder, in her book, than ignoring her.
“Hello, darling,” she greeted.
Logan always had to force himself not to scoff at the way she curled the ‘R’ extravagantly. He knew that her decadent accent was just as put-upon as the rest of her.
Logan had met his maternal grandparents a long, long time ago. He’d expected them to be stern like his own mom and dad, but they were the opposite. They’d cooed and hugged him even though he was already five. Hugs were something he needed to outgrow, his mom always said. The only person he should depend on was himself.
During their brief visit, Logan’s grandparents had given him sweets despite his mom’s protests and talked with a languid drawl that seemed to drip like honey from their mouths. He’d wondered out loud why they sounded so different from his mom, to which his grandad had replied, “Your mother is ashamed of where she came from, my boy, and she’s trying all that she can to forget it.”
It was the last time he saw them. For years after, he’d missed them. It was ridiculous, of course—he’d met them once and for barely any time at all, but. But…they’d been kind, and soft, and loving.
“Hi, Mom.”
She’d tried to get him to call her ‘Mother’ for a while, and if she hadn’t been so insistent on it, he would have done it, but Logan was all about petty wins. He knew he was losing the war—he simply didn’t know, after so long under the suffocating pressure of that house, how to escape her iron will. In a deep, weak part of him, he knew he’d end up with the career she wanted, marrying a man from ‘the right circles’, living in an apartment she approved of.
But calling her by something she didn’t want? Taking elective art classes even though they weren’t necessary? Staying out in undisclosed locations, with people he knew she wouldn’t approve of, even though he knew it wouldn’t last? He’d cling to those wins so the inevitable losses wouldn’t hurt so badly.
His mom looked over his sitting form carefully as if she were expecting to find some kind of contraband on his person. “It’s nice to see you doing some work.” On anybody else that would have been a compliment. In her voice, it was a critique.
Logan just nodded.
“I expect a debrief on your GPA and class grades on Friday,” she went on, as if this weren’t a standard and obligatory Friday activity.
“Yes, Mom.” He made sure not to infuse the words with the sarcasm wanting to pump out of him.
He expected her to leave then—they didn’t have much contact, even though she seemed to be ever-present in his life—but she lingered, humming thoughtfully. “You’ve been distracted lately,” she said, her voice perfectly pleasant, and all the more terrifying for it.
It was true that Logan’s mother didn’t hit him, but the power she had over him was like a curse that had been weaved through him, gaining power year after year. It had been so gradual that he hadn’t known the weight of it until he was suddenly on his knees, unable to move from under her stare, her demands.
Logan made sure not to show any outward signs of fear. “I need to spend some time with my classmates. I…I understand what you said the other day about networking. And it’s a good opportunity to study, too. I’m not used to it.”
His mother hummed again. If she weren’t the smartest person he knew, this would be easier. But she knew him too well—even if she believed what he was saying, she could tell it wasn’t the whole story. “And have you met somebody particularly interesting while networking?”
“Not really.” Not too quick, not too slow. No shrugging—she hated shrugging. It was, as Jay’s mom would say,uncouth.
