Page 4 of Crazy Rich Monsters (Necessary Evils 1)

Slowly.

Surely.

Painfully.

Karma is a dish best served, not by fate, but by the hands of those who’ve been wronged.

ChapterThree

ADDISON

An old Ghanian proverb states that he who is guilty has much to say, and maybe that’s why I’m known for keeping my mouth shut.

Nothing good comes from talking. Words are the match that light the flame. Words are the ideas that spark insurrection. Words separate the truth from fiction and because I’m always lying, words have the power to ruin me.

I could have hailed a cab the old-fashioned way, but those familiar yellow cars are in short supply these days. I could have used a rideshare app, but that would have gotten me to my destination far too fast for my liking. I spend the entirety of the night along the shores, taking the shortest route home possible.

Home, but it’s just a house. Nothing but four walls and a roof and memories that play like an album book with torn and burnt pages. It’s only a single floor, a ranch with the opposite of an open floor concept. The roof needed to be replaced a decade ago. It’s worse for wear now, a solitary shingle flapped over the side exterior.

The sun rises from the east, the harsh light of day casting a shadow upon the house I grew up in. It’s fitting that it’s cloaked in darkness. Just a few miles from the sea, the air feels tighter here, no breeze to ease the unrelenting heat. Summers in Upstate New York aren’t known to be brutal, and they’re certainly nowhere close to the hot, humid summers down in coastal Carolina. It’s only fitting that a heatwave descends upon the Hamptons upon my arrival. I’ve brought the heat of hell home with me, and if I have to pay for my sins, then I’m taking everyone down with me.

An old, rusted sedan sits in the driveway. It’s been parked in the same spot since my father died. I have next to no memory of my mother driving the damn thing. She was a permanent resident in the passenger seat. Looking back, I wonder if she was always too wasted to drive. Her head was always cocked against the window.

The car looks like it hasn’t moved in ages. There’s a half inch of grass spiked over the bottom of the tires on the passenger side where the asphalt meets the lawn. On both sides of the house of horrors are normal families with normal lawns, decorated in pristine gardens and used toys.

I spent seven hours journeying nowhere, delaying the inevitable. I’ve finally arrived and I’m questioning if I’m prepared to go inside. I could make this so easy for myself. I could turn and run before Mom has the chance to even know I’m home. I could forget her and forget this place and forget what this place did to me. I could run, just fucking run. It was a mistake coming back. I know that like I know the sun sets in the west.

But with each step forward, I’m drawn to the trauma like a moth to the flame. The asphalt of the walkway is cracked, cigarette butts littering the cracks in between each step. There’s a bag of trash sitting beside the front door, wet seepage pooled underneath. My heart pounds as I reach for the doorknob and turn it slowly until I’m able to push the door open to the symphony of ghastly creaks.

She’s lying on the couch, older than I remember. One arm hangs over the side, while the other is draped like a shield covering her eyes, protecting her from the slivers of light passing through the smoke-stained curtains. There’s an uncapped bottle of whiskey beside the couch, parked next to a blackened glass ashtray with more than a few half-burned cigarettes slat across it.

Mom.

The ceiling fan turns in impossibly slow circles overhead, each spin threatening to rip the ancient device from the popcorned ceiling. I came home forher.I came home to try and save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, someone I’m not sure that can be saved. I’m no hero. I’m no saviour. I’m a demon drowning in my own sin. It’s better then, that I avoid the crucifixes nailed to the wall over the torn and tattered floral-print couch.

I exit the living room.

Portraits of lies hidden behind the smiles of a family hang on both sides of the hallway. The frames are crooked, the glass littered with a thin veneer of dust. There’s three people in the photos, but only two of us were ever really there. The other walked and walks the world as if she’s a ghost, not playing by the same rules as everyone else. I’m not sure how she’s survived this long. I used to think she was a succubi, torturously eating away at the souls of my father and I. He had to die for her to live.

I don’t even bother checking out the kitchen. It reeks bad enough that I know the dishes haven’t been washed in weeks and the trash hasn’t been emptied for the same period of time. I pass through the dining room that’s become a makeshift graveyard for overdue bills and mail piled across the farmhouse table we always swore we’d use someday.

And then there’s my room.

A safe haven from the hellhole this house became after Daddy died. It’s untouched, just like I left it the night I ran like hell and never looked back. The curtains are drawn open, the windows outside not having been washed since I left. I’m not the same girl I used to be. That much is apparent by the pastel purple of the bedding and curtains. A mirror hangs above the wood dresser with a tapestry of photos taped to the glass. I have no interest in reliving the past, so I avoid looking too closely.

I sling my bookbag onto the bed. It’s small and light–I only packed the bare minimum to get me through the week. There are a few changes of clothing, my laptop, and nothing more. The less I brought, the more imperative it’d be for me to leave. I didn’t pack as if I was moving home. I packed as if I was only staying for a weekend visit.

I close my eyes, long overdue for a good night’s rest. I had about six hours of sleep on the bus ride from Carolina, but haven’t slept since. Sometimes, I suffer from insomnia. If my nightmares don’t keep me awake, my memories do. I’m so damn tired, but all I can focus on is the torturously slow ticking of the clock. Each tick, each tock, it’s like the hands of time are hellbent on suffocating me.

There’s a creak in the floor followed by the faintest gust of wind, and then there’s the smell of cigarette smoke permeating the air. I peel open my eyes to seeherstanding in the doorway with a lit cancer stick in her mouth.

“I thought I heard a ghost.” She takes a long drag of the morning cigarette and then exhales, blowing the smoke into my room. “You’re pale. You should get out more.”

“That’s the first thing you say to your daughter when you haven’t seen her in years?” I sit up in bed, throwing the hood of my hoodie over my head. “Never change, Mom.”

“The second thing I’d say…” She tosses the cigarette onto the hardwood floor and smothers it with the shoes she wore to bed. “What the hell are you doing in my house?”

It’s Daddy’s house.That’s what I want to say, but that’d only start an argument that’d land us on the merry-go-round of pointed knives. We’ve always been horrible to each other, but I’m her daughter so what the hell does anyone expect? Nature versus nurture. I never stood a fucking chance.

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