Page 3 of Merciless

The whole thing was ridiculous. Me, playing hide and seek with a guy that I hadn’t spoken to for four years. Sprinting from my car to my front door like a criminal every time I got home. But I just couldn’t bring myself to stop. It felt like everything would fall apart if I stopped doing that.

I quit my stalking the moment I saw a movement in Lucas’s room. I went to the hallway to go to the bathroom, and the smell of the fucking candles reminded me of the sight I was about to see on my way out to school this morning. I was breathing through my mouth only, but I could still somehow sense the stink on my tongue.

By the time I got out of the shower and back in my room, I got three texts and one missed phone call.

Hannah: You should get your ass in school like NOW. You won’t believe who’s here.

Tyler: Hey, sis. Call dad back. He’s acting like a dumped chick again.

Dad: Clem, are you mad at me?

I rolled my eyes mostly at my father and I typed back replies.

Clem: Do I care?

Clem: You should know. You’ve dumped a significant number of chicks yourself.

Clem: No, dad. I’ll call you back.

I got dressed as my phone vibrated with messages from Hannah and, possibly, Tyler if he hadn’t already lost interest in our exchange, which wouldn’t be a surprise. He hated our family drama to the point that he couldn’t spend more than two consecutive days in California with us. And he had the perfect excuse not to come. He lived in Boston now and the travel just wasn’t worth it, as he repeatedly reminded us during his short and rare visits.

I grabbed my shoe box from under the bed, and I emptied it. I didn’t trust my mother. She could come snoop around again. I didn’t want to have to explain those two thousand dollars I had hidden. But I didn’t want to walk around with that amount of cash in my pocket either.

I got downstairs and walked past Sylvia, who as I thought, was sleeping on the sofa. Apparently, she finished another bottle of wine last night because there were now two empty ones by the speaker. The disturbing thing was that the whole living room was covered in candles. She arranged all of them all over the place. No wonder the house smelled so much worse than last night.

She’s losing it.

The phone started ringing in my hand. I looked at the screen.

Dad.

I took the pillow of the armchair and unzipped it. I figured anything I was hiding right in front of her eyes would be better protected than if it was in my room. I put the money inside, zipped back the pillow, and I glanced at my mother again. She was snoring.

My phone was still vibrating in my hand. I knew I had to tell dad about her. It was the right thing to do.

I got out marching quickly to my car as I answered my father’s call.

“Hey, dad,” I murmured.

“Hey, honey. Is everything OK?” he asked. I paused hyper aware that the woman I just left inside was getting worse and that this was the perfect timing to come clean and share that beauty with the family.

And then he started talking.

“Are you mad at me? You didn’t like your present, did you? I knew you wouldn’t like it, but Adina kept repeating it was awesome.”

Adina was his new twenty-two-year-old girlfriend. My sister Madison was twenty-five, not that he was interested in that fact. And the present was a cashmere sweater that I didn’t need because… duh… Southern California. Also it was something I would never wear.

“I loved it,” I lied and took a deep breath. “Listen, dad…”

“Great!”, he shouted in my ear with a relief. “Sorry, honey, I just wanted to clear the air. I have an early meeting. I’ll call you later this week, okay?”

The decision was made in my mind that split second. I wasn’t going to parent them, since they hadn’t really ever parented me.

“Sure, dad. Don’t worry about it”.

Chapter Two

Lucas