Page 108 of Merciless

Clem: Hey.

Clem: Yes. I was trying to find out if you’re bringing someone home for Thanksgiving.

I was both shocked and impressed with my honesty.

Lucas: Why?

Clem: It was stupid. I’m sorry. Forget about it.

Lucas: Clementine…

Lucas: Spill it.

Clem: I spend a lot of time at your place and I just wanted to know if I should stop doing that. Around Thanksgiving.

Seven minutes passed before he answered. I counted.

Lucas: I’m glad to find out my mother is keeping her promise.

He obviously meant the promise about not sharing any information about him with me. Did that answer meant he had a girlfriend and he was glad his mother was hiding it from me? Or that he was glad I was completely in the dark about what was going on in his life?

Clem: Is that a yes?

Lucas: ?

Clem: Yes, you have a girlfriend and you’re brining her home for Thanksgiving?

Lucas: Don’t you think she would want to go home to her parents?

My heart sunk. It shrank. I couldn’t bring myself to answer to that. He had a girlfriend. She wasn’t coming with him, but he had one. Maybe she would come for Christmas.

I got out of my car and walked inside. I passed my mother who asked something about the movie we were watching later. I waved her off.

“Just pick one.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes, I’ll take a shower.”

That evening we sat in the living room about to watch a movie I wasn’t interested in one bit.

“Mom,” I started, and her eyes widened. I hadn’t called her that for quite some time. “Do you remember when I stopped talking to Lucas when we were fourteen?”

I wasn’t really sure if she paid that much attention to me back then to notice.

“Yes,” she was looking at me curiously. “It’s not exactly something you could forget. You were so close.”

“I did something. To him. To you too. I asked a boy to help me. I wanted to humiliate you.”

I told her the whole story. My mother sighed and leaned back on the couch.

“I’m not surprised.”

“Of course you’re not. You said it yourself. I’m just as sadistic and cruel as you are. Who else would do something so shitty?”

“Everyone does shitty things, Clem. I meant that you were angry and needed to get that anger out somehow.”

“I was planning on exposing you while you kissed one of our neighbors. Aren’t you mad at me?” I raised my voice.

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