Exit Wounds

07 | dead girl walking

S E V E N

LOS ANGELES, CA

          Rebecca. Rebecca. Rebecca.

          No one has called me that in years.

          I'm not sure how to feel about this or whether I can even allow myself to feel anything. It's my dad, the most important person in my life bar none, so I suppose he's the only person in this entire city—in this entire state, really—I should be giving the time of day and an opportunity to see and talk to me, but I'm surrounded by sharks who have made it clear are out for my blood. There's no way I can cross the room and run to him without being stopped after just a few steps, and I know I won't be able to handle anyone's filthy hands on me.

          Realistically, I can probably take my mother on a one-to-one brawl. However, I also know she doesn't fight fair and, on the rare times she doesn't get anyone else unnecessarily involved in a conflict that doesn't involve them, she'll surely resort to dirty tactics like good, old gaslighting and manipulation. That, I can handle.

          I have enough confidence in my feelings and my reality to be able to tell when she's trying to take advantage of a possible moment of fragility, thankfully, but things haven't always been that way. If I dared to show my face in this city a few years ago, when I didn't have an ounce of self-confidence and the intensive care provided by a therapist, I would've fallen right into her trap, a little fly stuck in a spider web.

          If anything, the thing that pisses me off the most about my mother is her hypocrisy, how she devotes so much time and effort into making herself look like the pinnacle of goodness and holiness when she's not even religious and has been the catalyst for most of the family's scandals.

          The main reason my parents ever got divorced was because she had an affair—at least that we know of—and decided to tear the entire family apart because she wanted to have fun and feel young again, but then blames it all on me like I've had anything to do with any of it. It was me, my need for attention, my need to be the only girl my father cares about; I made her feel unloved in her own house and got her addicted to pool boys, yo-yo dieting, and pills. I ruined their marriage, her life, Michelle's life. What's not to hate about Miss Harley Kane?

          Sorry. Rebecca Harley Kane.

          Getting rid of that horrid, vile first name was the driving force behind every change that followed—moving away, chopping off my hair, dyeing it from blonde to brown, changing my style of clothing, losing my tan. I'm sure she has taken all of it to heart, having chosen my name herself—my father chose Michelle's—and being the source of half of my genetic material, including the natural shade of my hair, but I couldn't care less. I did what I had to do to distance myself from her and everything that reminds me of her, so, if my mere presence in the house that she kept after the divorce is so offensive, she should have thought about it before forcing both my hand and my presence.

          Sadie turns to me, nostrils flaring, and my alcohol-induced lightheadedness begins to settle in. Now that I'm free from her grip, I'm also free to stumble to the side in front of my entire family and their guests.

          "I hate you," she hisses. "There are so many things you could do to make my job easier, but you actively choose to do those that make it harder."

          "Well, we didn't have to come here," I point out. "No one's forcing you to stay. Haven't you been complaining about how quaint Los Angeles is in comparison to New York?"

          Antagonizing Sadie when everyone's emotions are heightened is far from being one of my smartest or most adequate decisions, but it's not like things can get any worse. Michelle and the literal devil—who does have a name but, like with my first name, I don't want to acknowledge it—have backed away as she presses an ice packet to his cheek, like I could've possibly hurt him that much, but I want to believe I did. I want to believe that, at least, I could hurt him.