Behind every mean girl...there's a tragedy

Parenting done wrong

Living no longer seems like the right choice when your mother is staring at you ready to murder you in a blink of an eye. That's not what I envisioned when I wrote down everything that happened at the cabin on the piece of paper the officers gave me when they came in to take my statement. It's definitely not what I anticipated when a nurse informed me that my mom had come to visit me as soon as the sun appeared in the blue sky. I expected a hug or any sort of comfort when I walked inside the private room she has requested but I received none.

I stare at my mother, my eyes tracing every veins sticking out of her golden chocolate skin. Her dark lips move at an incredible pace, spitting out things I've never imagined my mother would say. Anyone listening to her would never believe that this woman carried me in her stomach for nine months, breastfed me for a whole year, and sang to me at night for more than three years.

"I should have known you would try to pull some shit like this," mom shouts at me. "You can't handle anybody being happy besides yourself. Ever since the first day Steven showed up, you tried your all to push him away from me."

I swallow the whimper about to leave my lips. Who is this woman?

She leans closer to me. Why isn't everyone coming to my rescue? Isn't there a camera?

"I officially love your mother," Kenny chuckles devilishly.

"If you thought for one second that I'd let you get away with this, you have another thing coming little bitch."

"Mom?"

"Shut it! I didn't work so hard to get where I am today for you to come and screw it up. You're just like your good for nothing father. I should have let you go with him. If it wasn't for Steven's good heart, I would have been free from the both of you. But no, he just had to keep you and now look how you treat him. You're nothing but a liar and a spoiled brat."

"I'm not lying. Steven raped me, mom."

The sting of her palm on my cheek brings tears to my already swollen eyes.

"Enough! Steven has been nothing but good to you. Do you know of any man who would be willing to take in a kid like you in their household? None but Steven. He saved your life, you ungrateful brat."

"He didn't save me," I spit back. "The only reason he wanted me to stay with you guys was because he didn't want me to rat him out to dad."

"Right," she scrunches up her nose as she glances up and down at me, "keep telling yourself that. As if a man like Steven needs anything from someone like you."

My knees tremble under the weight of her disdain. "Why are you doing this? I'm your daughter."

"I don't care. I have plans for myself and you don't fit in them. Perhaps I did love you but that love went out of the window the moment you accused my husband of rape."

She grabs me by the collar of my t-shirt. I'm so close to her face that I can count every single strand of eyelashes.

"I might be your mother but don't forget I'm from Brooklyn, New York, born and raised. So if by sun down my husband is still behind those bars because of you, I will show you exactly how ghetto your mother can get, my precious daughter. Don't make me tell you twice."

She lets me go then straighten the leopard spotted jacket over her black pencil skirt. Her stomach is beginning to show through her clothes. Without another look at me, she leaves. She bangs the door on her way out.

I drop myself on the cold marble floor. My mind is trying to make sense of what just happened. Nothing makes sense.

How could I have been so blind? All these years I thought my mother was weak for letting Steven control her but turns out she's been playing everybody. This makes me wonder how she could have ever been married to my dad. He's so sweet and kind. Unless he's hiding something, too.