My head was spinning. Was this really happening? Is this how he really saw me? Was this how others viewed me? I looked at Matt and saw how sad he was for me, but he didn’t say anything to dispute that what Connor was saying was wrong. I was going to throw up in the poolhouse. I don’t think I had ever had that thought before and it was weirdly funny. God…I was hysterical. That’s all I needed. Hysteria and vomit. If I didn’t calm down soon, I’d be getting taken to hospital. Maybe put in the same room as Jason. Ha! That would show his dad. A bubble of laughter was threatening to escape. I needed to get it together. A cool hand touched my elbow and I felt myself calm down. I knew it was Colton without looking.
“Connor, you’re being cruel. No one at school thinks Ari is like that. We most certainly don’t. Your actions have scared her and rightly so. Nobody likes to be controlled and you’re trying to control her. She was never going to leave you for another guy, we’ve told you this a hundred times and you wouldn’t listen. Your own insecurities are what have brought you to this point. You have no one else to blame.”
His words were like a bucket of cold water to me, but to Connor it was like a match to kindling. I saw the rage break the ice in his eyes and he lunged for his brother. Matt had me whisked out of the way before the first punch was thrown and I realised – as I was held against his chest – that I was right. Cole could hold his own after all. Two punches later and it was lights out for Connor.
Cole turned and looked at me and Matt. “Take her home Matt, I better get this idiot to his room before he wakes up. It would be best if you probably weren’t here for that Arielle.” He sighed as he looked down at his brother. “Oh and for God’s sake, don’t tell your father or none of us will ever see you again.”
I didn’t even know what to say. I looked at him and again that something from earlier was in his eyes and gone again before I could identify it. Matt led me out, past the cold glare of Jake Dawson as he hurried to his sons, and back into the SUV. He’d put my seatbelt on and driven me home. He didn’t say a word.
“Is it true Matty? Am I cold and heartless?” I whispered. I felt a bit broken. I knew I was far from ok and I just couldn’t seem to get a proper breath in my lungs to calm down.
“Of course not, Bit – you’re full of love and kindness. That’s why you’re the girl who gets away with sitting next to anyone, talking to anyone, not having a group. Everyone loves you, the girls want to be you, the boys want to date you. Unfortunately for Connor, that was the problem. It doesn’t help that you have no idea that you’re stunningly beautiful on the inside as well as out. Your complete unawareness is half the problem to be honest; personally, I think that’s half the charm.” He winked at me to soften the words.
Tears were running down my face and I couldn’t look at Matt. He squeezed my hand. I nodded to let him know I was ok. I think I thanked him for the lift and the support and then I was out of the car.
He didn’t drive off immediately, so when I heard the screaming from my parents fighting, I was tempted to run back and hide in his SUV, but it seemed that’s all I did: was hide. I straightened my shoulders and headed to my house. The door was flung open as I approached. My dad came charging out. I heard him mutter “evil bitch” “drink” and a few more curse words as he stormed past me, so agitated that he barely seemed to notice me standing there.
I looked back to the SUV. Matt was frowning and leaning out the window. I gestured for him to go, even though that was the last thing I wanted him to do. He looked hesitant and then I heard his phone ring – the distinct ringtone he had programmed for Colton, Avenged Sevenfold’s ‘Hail to the King.’ It was a tongue-in-cheek joke that infuriated Colton and made the rest of us laugh. Matt therefore refused to change it. It was so rare for Colton to lose his composure, so naturally Matt pounced on every opportunity. I nodded at him from the front door to my house as he took the call. He scowled. Then, with a final questioning look and a second nod from me, he drove off.
I entered the house and found my mother smashing the kitchen dishes against the wall, floor, table – any hard surface really. Broken crockery and glass were flying everywhere. I flinched as she screeched like a banshee. I saw the open bottle of whisky on the table. Half empty. I spotted an empty bottle rolling under the table. She was out of it. I ducked, narrowly avoiding a dinner plate as she flung it directly at my head.
“It’s all your fault. I never wanted you. Look at you, you stole my life, you stole my looks, you stole my husband.” I stole her husband? That was new. The rest I had heard many times before. My mother was Scottish, I don’t know what was in the water over there, but her temper was legendary in this house. My dad had been a foreign exchange student when they’d met, studying at the University of Aberdeen, for one semester in his second year of college. They met, fell in love, and within a few months, she was pregnant. Dad dropped out of school. Meanwhile mum – never mom, I wasn’t allowed to call her mom – had gained an American husband, who took his pregnant wife back to the States to start a different life. She was one of the school librarians in my school, so everyone knew her. Everyone thought she was sweet and lovely. They didn’t have to live with her.
“Yeah I know. You tell me all the time. I’m going to my room. Try to sober up before dad comes back.” I really was heartless after all. Matt had lied.
“Don’t you walk away from me you little bitch,” she shrieked at me. I should have kept walking but instead I turned around. She was standing there, wild looking, panting from the effort of throwing our kitchen plates and wineglasses around the room like Frisbees.
I looked her up and down in disgust. I didn’t like this woman. She’d always been cold and heartless. My dad loved me, cherished me even, but this shrew drained us both dry. I had no idea why he stayed with her. I would have divorced her years ago. Maybe Icouldsee where she was coming from when she said I stole her husband... my dad had no time for her these days but plenty of time for me. Should I feel guilty that one parent loved me enough for both of them? My head was going to implode soon. This had to be the worst day ever.
“What – I’m the bitch?” I asked it sharply, coldly. Uncaring. She must have registered how much I didn’t care. She broke down into sobs. She crumpled to the floor like a deflated balloon and started crying. I was unmoved. I was as cold and unyielding as Jake Dawson was when he looked at me. I shuddered inwardly at the thought.Jesus – did we have something in common?The thought chilled me.
“You don’t understand how hard it is for me to look at you, when I only see her,” she sobbed. I literally had no idea what she was talking about. I was curious; I couldn’t help it, even though I knew I shouldn’t engage with her. I had to ask.
“Ariella,” she spat at me. “My angelic sister who could do no wrong, who was so perfect, who was as cold and heartless to me as you are.”
Ah the sister. She was my mother’s younger sister and had died tragically in a boating accident. They said I was the spitting image of her. I always forgot about her because she was never mentioned. It was weird really. My dad had insisted they honour her when I was born, but my mother had resisted. So instead of Ariella, I was named Arielle but would be known as Elle. No wonder my mother hated me.
“I partied the night she died you know. I was so pleased to be finally rid of her,” my mother continued. I was appalled. Whodidthat? Who admitted it to anyone, even themselves?
My mother looked away from me. She looked almost happy as she reminisced about what had to have been one of the most tragic nights of my Grandparents’ lives. “Your father loved her, you know, not that he ever told her...or me. But I knew. I could tell by how he looked at her. I knew she was starting to realise it too. The night she died, I went to him and I comforted him. It pleased me to know I was getting what she would never have.” She laughed. I couldn’t move. I felt glued to the floor, my eyes were wide and I knew I was shaking. Those hate filled eyes were trained on me again; I flinched at the loathing in them.
“Nine months later you were born. Even in death that bitch was messing up my life. I had to marry that pathetic excuse for a man and then I was stuck with a kid that looked like her and that he loved more than me. He only loves you because you look so much like her.”
I was frozen to the spot – her loathing for me rooting me to the kitchen floor like nothing ever had.
“Now I’m stuck here in this pathetic house with a pathetic man and an even more pathetic daughter. I wish I could die.” She reached for the bottle of whisky again. I loathed this person. Thisthing. Person was too good for her. I hated her.
“I wish you would do it, I wish you would just leave,” I said as I watched her nearly drain the bottle like it was water. I felt nothing as I said it out loud. I didn’t even react as she gasped. She hadn’t expected that. Hadn’t expected me to hate her too.
“I’m going to kill myself and it will be your fault,” she screeched, clambering to her feet and launching herself at me. I sidestepped. Colton would have been proud of how detached I was – how smoothly I had done it. She fell flat on her face. I almost laughed. I felt it bubbling under the surface and I stood there thinking.They both broke me, I’m broken.
She tried to get up, cutting her hand on the broken plates. I didn’t move. Again, she tried to force her way up, again she slipped and cut her arms on the plates and glass strewn on the floor. I didn’t move. She managed to roll over. She was bleeding, but I knew it wasn’t serious, just superficial cuts. It was the same as every other time this happened, even if this was the worst I’d ever seen her. She was the pathetic one, not me.
I finally reached down for her and although she fought me, I got her off the floor and back to the table. I went to take the bottle away and she snatched it from me. Then I felt a blow. As I fell sideways, I knew she had hit me on the head with it. I landed hard – and felt sharp cuts. I got to my feet. She was sitting back, almost lounging, hatred dancing in her eyes, the bottle dangling from her fingers.
“I hate you.” There. I had said it. I couldn’t take it back. She was drunk, but I knew she would never forget I had said it. I didn’t care. My head was pounding; I needed to get away from here.
I turned to walk away. I was so tired – I needed to go to my room, call my dad and plead that we finally leave this hell behind.