Page 99 of Beneath the Stands (Sugarlake 2)

Becca

It’s an odd feeling realizing the way you’ve lived your life isn’t how the world really is. They say perception is reality, and hell, I guess that’s the truth because I’ve perceived my momma wrong all these years. I’ve placed her beside me as an innocent—a victim. A woman who fell short of the mothering aspect of life, but a bystander to the cruel and twisted man my papa is, nonetheless.

Too prideful to admit her pain, yet too weak to leave.

Just like me.

I’ve been so afraid of becoming her that I drank in her words and used them as my fuel, not realizing they were molding my cells into a perfect replica. Now when I look in the mirror, I see Momma staring back instead of my own reflection.

Thoughts become things.

Momma’s an actress. A manipulator. And I’ve been her marionette, dangling from her lines for far too long. She played my strings so expertly, I didn’t even realize I was her puppet.

Last night, particularly, was worthy of a standing ovation, enough to fool even the harshest of critics. But it had the opposite effect on me.

I don’t buy her sorrow.

My heart doesn’t mend based off her empty apology. The only thing it does is show me that Momma is not the weak and innocent woman I thought she was.

Momma is a snake.

A viper, just like her husband.

Sickness spreads through my heart, poisoning my blood when I think about what that makes me.

Waiting on Eli and Sarah to show up to the church, I force my limbs to move until I sit behind Papa’s desk—the one that represents the first crack in the foundation of my beliefs.

My folks are masters of deception. They prey on your trust and edge along the rim of honesty, until you don’t know how to tell the truth from the lie.

Knowing that doesn’t change the fact I saw Papa rutting on top of Sally Sanderson, and it doesn’t take away the disappointment in knowing he made vows and broke them. But for the first time, I realize the image he shattered in that moment—that image never really existed.

It was a mirage. An illusion that’s been propped up and executed beautifully for years.

My heart picks up speed when I think about what the motive was behind Momma finally telling me. I know as sure as the day is long, it wasn’t from the goodness of her cold, dead heart.

I don’t intend to stick around and find out.

My eyes glance over Papa’s desk. Papers are strewn haphazardly, and there’s a gaudy, gold cup in the corner, holding an assortment of pens. My gaze snags on the letter opener and I grit my teeth to keep from grabbing it, wanting to destroy everything on this desk and hope that somehow it will purge the years of Momma’s words from my blood until my veins are free from her lies.

Words that Momma twisted into knots with her tongue and spit into my brain, knowing I’d leave them there to fester.

My hands shake as they hover above the desk’s top, and I marvel at the deception in the oak’s beauty.

Perception is reality, indeed.

I’m here to tell Eli and Sarah that I’m leaving and won’t be planning their wedding, after all. And then I’m packing a suitcase and going with Jax to California. Like most of my decisions, it’s sporadic, but it’s the one part of myself that I know is really me. So even though I don’t have money, I haven’t quit my job, and I haven’t even thought about breaking my rental agreement, I’m going. All those things pale in comparison to what’s tearing at my insides and pushing me out the door.

If I don’t go now, while my anger is hot and my betrayal is fresh, I may never leave.

The sound of a throat clearing snaps me out of my daze, and I snatch my hands back, placing them under my thighs to try and stem the tremble. I lock my gaze on Sarah, knowing if I look at Eli, I’ll have to face the other lie I’ve been telling myself. That Jeremy was wrong. That it isn’t me who makes the light dim in Eli’s eyes.

If I look at Eli, I’ll waver in every decision I’ve ever made, and while there’s so much I’m coming to terms with, I’m not ready to face the truth about him and me.

Not yet.

Besides, it’s not fair for me to stay around and muddle up his shot at happiness. This is what Mrs. Carson always wanted for him, and for once in my life, I’m going to step back and do the right thing. Not out of fear, but out of love.

So I won’t look at Eli.

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