Page 72 of Fireworks Flame
Over the next few hours, my mom rewrites our history so thoroughly that I find myself wondering if she’s gone into a coma without informing me, emerging with someone else’s memories. I keep waiting for her to develop an accent. She’s charming and bubbly, entertaining Deiss with story after story. Unfortunately, almost every word out of her mouth is a lie.
“I had to get rid of the big house when Liv left,” she says as she passes the plate of cookies she’s removed from their single-serve wrappers. “It was too empty all on my own. I needed something cozier.”
I reach under the table and squeeze her knee, hoping to wake her back to reality. What does she expect Deiss to think when he sees my old bedroom? The stuffed closets and postered walls are dead giveaways that a child grew up there. Is she going to make up a new sibling next? In this alternate reality, did I have a twin who ran away to join the circus?
She squeezes my hand back, like we’re doing some weird, under-the-table high five.
I take an unladylike gulp of tea and cough as it goes down wrong.
“Marriage just isn’t for me,” she says later as she tops Deiss’s cup for what must be the fifth time. “I like my freedom too much to settle down. But I’m sure you’ve seen that same trait in Livvie there. She’s had even more proposals than me.”
“Is that so?” Deiss leans back in his chair, grinning lazily at me.
“She hasn’t told you?” Mom says before I can answerNo, that is certainlynotso. “Oh, yes. It’s going to take a very special man to lock this one down.”
“Like an officer of the law?” I ask. “A psychiatrist? I honestly don’t know what we’re talking about here.”
“Don’t be so humble, Liv,” Mom says. “Lucas needs to know what a catch you are.”
“Yes,” Deiss says. “Please tell me where all these men before me went wrong so I can avoid following in their footsteps.”
“I wish I could,” I mumble, not wanting to embarrass Mom by calling out her fibs, but also unwilling to enhance them.
I expect things to get easier when we settle onto the couch and she drags out the photo albums. Unlike most people, I have no documentation of my awkward phases. My mom has always wanted me to look my best. I can’t think of a single photo she’s ever taken of me that didn’t involve multiple reshoots and angle changes. Even when I was a baby, she’d smudge a little lipstick on my cheeks to give me a healthy glow.
I reach for the remote and turn on the TV, earning an annoyed look from her. The man in the libido-enhancer commercial doesn’t fit the classy scene she’s attempting to create. Still, my mom soldiers on, raising her voice over the list of potential side effects.Rash. Trouble breathing. Blindness.
She squints as she reads the captions over the photos aloud, unwilling to put on the readers that “make her look old.” Deiss plays his part by cooing over my cuteness. But Mom veers wildly off script as she recounts the stories behind the photos.
“This is our old cat, Boots,” Mom says, showing Deiss a picture of the cat she discarded in an effort to keep Paul. “We had to give him up when I broke things off with an old boyfriend. Paul was so devastated to lose Liv that it only seemed right to let him take the cat. I thought having a little four-legged friend might keep him going.”
I almost snort aloud. Paul had no problemgoing. He practically ran out the door, slamming it shut behind him.
“That was very generous of you,” Deiss says. “It must have been difficult to give up your cat.”
It was.I feel a flare of anger at what we did to keep that rigid, judgmental man in our lives. Maybe it’s my mom’s revisionist history that’s knocked me out of familiar patterns, because I’ve never before let myself be angry at the loss of Boots. It’s been too easy to focus on pity for my mom, how sad it is that nothing she ever does is enough.
But Boots would’ve stayed with her. Plus, I loved him. How was it fair to take away somethingIloved in a desperate attempt to hold onto yet another mansheclaimed to love?
I stand up, mumbling something about the bathroom, and slip out of the room. The hallway is dim and dreary. A blown-up photograph of my mother in the tiara she got for winning Miss Brantley smiles at me from behind its frame.
“You should’ve chosen us over them,” I whisper to her younger self.
I don’t know if I’m referring to Boots and me or her and me. Either option works. I wish I could say it to her face, butthe timing would be cruel. She’s so desperate to impress Deiss. And there’s nothing she loves more than this part of meeting someone, when she can sparkle brightly enough to distract—when they haven’t yet discovered the flaws that lie beneath that perfect facade.
I walk into my bedroom, easing the door closed behind me. The pink duvet has been fluffed, and the dresser gleams from its recent dusting. The pictures tacked on the wall are messy, though, and they’re all mine. I smile at the one where my hair is stuck to my head like I’ve been slimed. Beside me, Phoebe has a trickle of yellow from her hair down to her chin. Next to her, Deiss is holding up one of the eggs we’d meant to unleash on Simone’s ex but had ended up hurling at each other instead.
I pull it down, wanting something tangible to replace the ones I lost when my condo got emptied out. My smile falls when I discover the picture beneath it. It’s me before prom, wearing the dress Cara Jenkins had lent me. We both knew she’d shoplifted it, even though I pretended to believe her when she said she’d bought it on sale and couldn’t return it. I shouldn’t have been so surprised when she helped herself to my college money. In the picture, I look beautiful and exuberant, as if I hadn’t spent the day terrified that the girls who had been bullying me for years were going to pull some kind of bucket-of-bloodCarrieprank on me.
“Liv?” Deiss raps lightly on the door.
I open it, and he presses in, moving me backward with his body. A naughty smile plays at his lips, making my stomach swoop. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to Lucas Deiss looking at me like he wants to consume me.
“Is the history lesson over?” I ask, feeling the backs of my legs press against my bed.
“The visual portion of it, at least.” He slides his arms around my waist. “I think there are more stories in the tank.”
I want to snort at his use of the wordstories. He has no idea just how fictional the things he’s just heard are. His stormy blue eyes dip to my mouth as his hand slips up my back. My stomach lurches again. He’s somuch. So self-assured and dynamic andreal. He doesn’t belong in this house of lies. Neither of us do.
