Page 199 of Hunger
“And I’m guessing that doesn’t involve some yoga teacher with pink hair?”
“I do suspect you’ll give my mother indigestion with the hair.”
“God, what is it with so many people having a stick up their ass over the tiniest thing these days?” I gripe, realizing I’m breathless, panicked at the idea of them hating me, at another of the mounting obstacles I’m stacking up in my own mind about why our so-called “relationship” is doomed.
I mean, most relationships are, statistically, but there’s something about the way I feel when I look at Grey that makes me feel like my heart might ache for the rest of my life without him.
And that’s not a feeling I've ever had with a man before. It feels so dangerous, and I feel so reckless for having put myself in this stupid position.
I don’t know what I’m doing…
“And I'm not sorry for it,” I continue, realizing I’m starting to sound unhinged. “I’m not changing my appearance for anyone. That includesyouor any member of your stuck-up family.”
“Good. Because another reason I’m even considering you having dinner with them is to see my mother’s face when you walk in the room.”
“Look, I’m not some token thing you can rebel against your uptight emotionally withholding parents with.”
His face hardens. “No, you’re not,” he growls. “I’ve needed their approval for a long time and never got it. I’m done trying to get it. I don’t give a fuck what they think, but… maybe this is good for us,” he suggests.
“Oh yeah, how?”
Noticing me shift my feet, he takes hold of my hand, leading me in that elegant, controlled way of his over to the piano and sitting down on its long, cushioned leather stool. I sit down next to him as he stares at the wooden cover hiding the keys.
“I’ve spent my life hiding in the shadows,” he says. “That’s where I feel safe. Except… I’m not sure I want to do it anymore.”
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, my mom could probably shake hands with your parents. No disrespect meant, but there’s ample evidence that she was once a hell-crawling succubus vomited up to the Earth’s crust by Satan to cause misery.”
He sees right through my attempt at levity, shifting his body in an instant, turning to look at me. “Marilla?”
I shake my head. “Marilla isn’t… my birth mother. Nor is Orpha.”
His brow creases.
“They kind of… informally adopted me when I was seventeen. We met volunteering at a dog rescue. The volunteer work was part of what I had to do at this camp for…problem children. Only I wasn’t a fucking problem. I was just… traumatized after being brought up by my birth mother who had all the maternal instincts of a meat grinder.”
He leans into me closer as if trying to inhale the words.
“They took me under their wing and then, we just got really close. They don’t have children of their own and one day, when I was really upset about another satanic thing my mother had done, they asked if they could adopt me… spiritually. As far as I’m concerned, they’re my parents. They’ve loved me more in six years than my own mother has my whole life.”
He grimaces as I say the words, his solemn eyes roaming all over my face. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that. I don’t know how anybody could not love you.”
I gulp. “It’s okay.”
“And your father?”
“He died when I was seven. My mom married my—” I pause as a surge of nausea hits me. “My stepfather about a year after that, but… I don’t see them anymore. Out of choice. I think they’re dangerous people… emotionally… and I don’t subscribe to the theory that if someone shares blood with you, you have to keep them in your life no matter how much they hurt you, like… a prison sentence you didn’t do the crime for.”
I shiver a little as I scour his eyes, bracing myself for the resistance I usually get. Both Micah and Kohl disapproved of me not talking to my mother, especially when they found out how wealthy she is, though neither of them really needed help in the money department… I don’t think.
“You need to just keep things civil with her.”
“Just talk to her once a week.”
“She’s your mother. You owe her.”
Just a few of the anxiety-laden attempts at advice they’d hit me with when I told them she was too toxic for me to keep in my life. I mean, so toxic that I’d be pacing the room for hours when the allotted time she instructed me to pick up the phone at would approach. I would flinch, my heart stampeding and poison trickling into me when her text messages would come through. I would find myself consumed by dark self-destructive thoughts after spending time with her, and with the husband she so adored, the one I so feared. I can’t spend my life like that anymore. No sane adult would ever want to lose their parents. For any child to walk away, something bad had to have happened for a very long time.
But we’re not supposed to say that. We’re not supposed to rock the boat. It’s much more comfortable for everyone if victims just keep taking whatever parental abuse is dished out to us.