Exit Wounds

10 | girl on a mission

T E N

LOS ANGELES, CA

          There are lawyers in Los Angeles that can make everything go away, every mistake, every indiscretion.

           I know this because I've been there, but it was my complaint that was turned into a mean-spirited rumor, created with the sole purpose of ruining a promising young man's future and reputation.

           I know this because these lawyers have actively acted against me, persuaded me to drop everything and to disappear if I didn't want my entire life to be ruined.

           Now, years later, I vividly remember sitting there, feeling like the world was moments away from collapsing around me, and staring back at a legal team—it included women, too. My eyes stung from all the crying and my scalp was sore on the spot my hair had been ripped out of, but the worst pain was lodged underneath my ribs, the sense of betrayal bubbling like hot lava in my bloodstream. I remember wondering what those women were feeling when they looked me in the eye and presented deals falsely advertised to protect me, when in reality they were protecting someone else—a guy. If I stayed quiet, if I went away, if I didn't ask my father's lawyers for unnecessary help or pro bono consultation, it would be so much easier for everyone involved.

          Stupid, naive little me fell for it, for the weaponizing of my own pain and desire to protect my father and his image of me against me. I was so desperate to not tarnish his version of who I was that I accepted the deal, packed my bags, and exiled myself across the country. As I sat in cold, lifeless rooms and watched those lawyers pat him on the back, as I attempted to make myself smaller, I found myself silently calling out for my mother, willing her to walk through one of those doors.

          She never came. To this day, I'm unsure why I ever expected her to come to me.

          Today, as Adam screeches in horror after my copy of the house keys leaves a nasty scar on the paint of his precious Volvo, my mother appears outside faster than my brain can process what's going on. I can hardly believe what I've done—it's far from being the worst thing I have ever done in my life; in fact, it doesn't even rank in the top five—but setting my eyes on her is quick to bring me back to reality and remind me of what exactly is at stake.

          I'm a guest here. Even though I was emotionally blackmailed to fly all the way over to Los Angeles and relive the most traumatizing moments of my life, over and over again, I'm still a guest, and my name can be erased from the funeral's guest list. My grandmother wouldn't have wanted me there anyway, or so I'm assuming based on her treatment of me while she was alive, but I've been here under the impression that I'm doing my father a favor by supporting him. I would do anything for him, including this, and disappointing him again is the last thing on my agenda, but it's bound to be a consequence of my actions.

          If I get kicked out, if I get sent home because I can't behave myself around Adam, my mother, and everyone else who helped ruin my life, then that's it. It's over. I'll have reached the point of no return, and not even he will be able to turn a blind eye to my behavior and the lengths I'll go to for the sake of avenging nineteen-year-old me. I can't even pretend it's about protecting Michelle when it's always been about me—me, what was done to me, and how I've been treated ever since.

         Granted, part of it has been my fault (the whole thing about how I've been treated since I left, considering how eager I was to pack my bags and not have to deal with this city and its ghosts anymore). Though I was responsible for some of it, it wasn't just me—it was all of them, even Michelle, who acts like Adam is the single greatest human being to have ever set foot on this planet.