12 | liar, liar (part two)

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN nearly a month, my mother is back in the apartment. Her general appearance is gaunt and worn, her gaze drooping and eyes red-rimmed.

When I finally wake up, come ten AM, she hugs me as if she won't see me again; half-hiccupping, half-sobbing into the crook of my neck, my skin becoming uncomfortably wet with her tears.

"You were at that party with Ebony, weren't you?" She asks, dangerously waterlogged.

I don't dare to deny it when everything around us suggests otherwise, so I nod. "Then, you went to see him? My poor baby."

I nod again, even though this time, it's a lie. I haven't seen Ebony since Archer carried him away, and maybe that's for the better. Guilt is an acrid taste, and seeing him would swamp me in it, Archer Finley's merciless hand holding my head under until I suffocate beneath the rubble.

"And that Rebel girl, she used to be so lovely," she continues, unaware of me wincing in the confines of her embrace. "How could she do this to him? And you, for that matter. Do you know, I heard that she'd been pressuring him into sex. How could she do that to any young boy, let alone one she's known for so long? It's too much, it's all too much, darling!"

"I know, Maman," I say, appealing to our French roots as a half-hearted attempt at consoling her. Patting her back and going through the emotions of sympathy. "She betrayed me too," I half-lie.

"I know, I know, baby." She rubs my back, lifting her head from her shoulder and wiping her eyes. I'm half a head taller than my mother, but the lines of age sketched onto her face have never been more apparent. "I'm going to be talking to Mr Rose about this. I hope things like this haven't always been happening under his nose. Of course, if he'd known, I know he would tell me―I trust that man with my life, and surely if he'd known about these kinds of parties, Ebony wouldn't be hurt like this."

Mr Rose. More than Ebony, it's that name that brings the sick feeling surging back to my stomach. I know she doesn't know what that man has put me through, but even if she did, would it change anything? I'm still her miserable daughter, lying right to her face, so if she were to ever find out, she'd probably despise me too much to care.

"Maybe," I murmur, dismissive. It's the only way to respond to her when she's fretting, especially where Ebony is concerned. As the youngest, he's the child all her anxieties as a mother stem from, so I've gotten used to dealing with her in the most detached way possible. Easier than empathising head-first, when the foundations of our relationship are so built on lies sympathy would shatter them. "But he's fine and he's in his room, and he won't be going back to one of those parties, so we don't need to worry."

"If you're sure." Her hands slip up my arms, and we begin to sway from side to side. "The thought of him being hurt, being pressured into something like that―I couldn't bear that to happen to either of you."

Her words are so soft, so passionate, that I'm almost convinced to tell her. Almost.

But the truth still stands that she'll never believe me, and so I'm left to suffer in silence.

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