Page 11 of Daughter of a Monster

“Gideon keeps asking about you.” At the mention of his name, she stops walking and turns to face me. Her expression softens a little.

“How is he?”

“He’s fine. He’s good.” I snort out a laugh. “You know how he is. Busy doing nothing, the useless fuck.”

“Don’t call your brother a useless fuck.”

“Sure thing, Mother.” She hates me using the word, that’s why I draw it out so slowly.

She leans against the wall and I position myself beside her. We look nothing alike. I take more after my father than I do her. Her hair is lighter, her skin paler. Gideon looks a little like her but instead of his hair being greasy and dirty and half pink, his is a halo of dark curls.

“You’re going to scare off any clients.” She takes another drag on her vape. The liquid gurgles in the silence of the night. A siren echoes and she leans off the wall to peer down the street.

“You made any progress with Hope?” she asks.

“I’m getting close.”

“That’s what you always say.”

“This time it’s true.”

She smiles but it’s a cruel smile. A sad smile. “Sure.”

“You haven’t heard anything on the street?”

She shakes her head. She keeps fidgeting with her vape, even when it isn’t stuck between her lips. Her fingers are stained with nicotine from years of smoking. There are track marks on her arms. Fresh ones.

“You okay?” I ask finally. “Need anything?”

“You got any smokes?”

“You know I don’t smoke.”

“I didn’t ask if you smoked. I asked if you had any.”

Reaching for my wallet again, I pull out all the notes I have stuffed inside. “Here.” I hold them out. “Take this. Buy yourself a feed.”

I’ve given her enough money for a month’s worth of food but I know that’s not what she’s going to use it on. Still, she’s my mother. I can’t just let her rot, even if her actions set in motion all the worst parts of my life.

She grabs the money hungrily and stuffs it down her bra.

No remorse. No guilt. No thanks.

“Maybe you could take the night off? Come back to the apartment with me. I’ll get you a room. You could get a good night’s sleep. I’ll pay you more than whatever you’d normally make.”

But already I’ve lost her. She’s pulled herself off the wall, digging her hands deep into the pockets of her skimpy shorts. “Tell Gideon I love him, okay?”

“You could tell him yourself, you know,” I call after her. “You could come home.”

“I don’t have a home,” she throws over her shoulder as she walks down the street.

I don’t tell her Gideon doesn’t know of her existence. I don’t tell her that he thinks she’s dead in a ditch somewhere. Walking over to a car that’s stopped on the side of the road, she smiles as the window rolls down. After only a few seconds of conversation, she gets in, not looking back as they speed off into the night.

“Bye, Mother,” I mutter, walking back to the car. There’s a part of me that wants to follow them, that wants to rip that guy from her like I did the other. But I’ve been there before. I’ve dragged her away and tried to force her to live a different life. But each time, she came back. Here. To this.

The drive to my city apartment doesn’t take long. Once inside, I immediately push off my shoes and shrug out of my jacket. Undoing the buttons, I toss my shirt over the back of a chair and collapse onto the bed. When I’m dressed in a suit I feel as though I’m wearing someone else’s skin.

Each time I return to the city, I feel dirty. I’m reminded of the person I’m pretending to be. The so-called playboy. The person who was born to money and wealth. The person with power. The person who doesn’t have a drugged-out prostitute for a mother and a father who used to beat the shit out of her on a daily basis.

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