The ride home was in complete silence.
I could barely even hear her breathing.
She had her work van instead of our car, so instead of pulling into the garage, she parked out the front, and we walked up to the front door. As we stepped into the house, I realized Denver must have been staying at a friend’s house. Mom was that angry, she didn’t even want him here to be witness to how she was about to yell and scream at me and tell me what an awful child I was.
I followed her in through the front door cringing as she froze in the entryway, her eyes darting to where the bowl should be, her keys hanging from her finger.
Holy shit, I’m screwed.
The broken bowl—I at least felt bad about it knowing how much it meant to her. I’d managed to clean up the mess yesterday before she spotted it, but I didn’t think about what she’d do when suddenly it disappeared.
“I bumped into it yesterday and knocked it off, I’m—”
“Go to bed,” she interrupted before I could even start to apologize.
“Mom—”
“I said go to bed, Meyah.” She stormed off stepping on a piece of the bowl which I’d missed in my clean up, and letting it crunch underneath her shoes as she disappeared into the kitchen.
Any other time, I would have done as she said. I would have gone to my bedroom and not come out again until tomorrow when the both of us had chilled out. My mom would lay down her punishment, I would nod and not say a word, and things would go back to normal.
That was usually how our relationship worked—not that we argued a hell of a lot, and the times we did were mostly about the club.
But that was before I’d had such a shitty couple of days, and before I decided I was done being pushed around or shoved to the side. I needed her to hear me, and I needed her to respect me. I’d finally gotten that at school, but my mom was still treating me like a little girl as if I was too young to make my own choices about who I spent time with and why.
So stubborn as I fucking was, I followed her into the kitchen stomping hard against the wooden floors. “I’m sorry about the bowl,” I began with, hoping that opening with an apology was the correct technique. I couldn’t tell if she was listening or not as she angrily loaded the dishwasher, cutlery and plates clanging and crashing against each other. “I didn’t mean to break it, it was an accident. I’ll help Denver make you a new one.”
Still, she didn’t respond, this time moving on to cleaning off the kitchen counter.
“Mom! Can you please just listen to me for once,” I pleaded, slamming my palm down on the marble bench top fighting desperately for her attention.
She froze, setting down her cleaning cloth and turning her body to face me.
“I just want to be heard. I want to have my say without people telling me that my opinion and my choices have no value and that I’m too young or too naive to know what I’m doing.” I licked my lips and pushed my shoulders back feeling the intense pressure under her hard gaze. “You know how I feel about Ham, and he’s a good guy—”
“You willnotbe dating a biker, Meyah,” she threw back sharply. “We had this discussion yesterday, and the answer was no, and it’s still no.”
Turning her back to me, she continued to wipe everywhere even though the surface was already sparkling clean. This is what she does, though, she cleans when she’s upset. It’s the reason her company did so well because she was damn good at what she did. And she used it to hide her emotions.
“I didn’t ask for your permission, Mom,” I argued, moving into the kitchen. “He’s not just a biker. Nobody in the club arejust bikers.They’ve been nothing but amazing to you and me. Uncle Leo bends over backward to let you have Macy whenever you want to see her. Hadley helped me pass my exams and fill in my college applications.”
“The club is bad news, Meyah. They have enemies. They are dangerous,” she responded keeping her head down and her eyes focused on the benchtop. “Why won’t you just listen?”
I moved closer reaching out to grab her arm. “Because I know them. I’ve spent time with them, and if you would just—”
“I can’t even look at you right now.” She spun around yanking her arm away from my grasp. “I will not watch you turn into your father.”
Silence.
Did she just…
I could feel myself frowning as her words passed through my brain, and I started to make sense of what she’d just told me. Neither of us knew what to do or say, so we both just stared at each other. My body was frozen in shock. The words she’d said were like a knife straight to my heart, but at the same time, she’d just thrown something out there, something she’d always said she wasn’t really sure of. The storm in her eyes had already begun to lessen instantly replaced with sorrow and regret about the words she hadn’t meant to say.
My mom was my rock, she loved me unconditionally.
But things had just changed.
“Meyah,” she pled and took a step toward me holding out her arms. I backed away, shaking my head as I tried to get my mind around what just went down. Whether I’d actually heard the words she’d just said.