Page 76 of Bite Me
Her face hardened. “Then he must be serious about you if he stooped so low as to give you a ride to prison.”
I was so happy yesterday and this morning with Russel. He fucking doted on me, and I let myself hope for some kind of future where I could have a man like him care for me. Even love me.
Five minutes with her, and she ruined everything.
“Mom, I don’t want to argue again. I thought you’d want me to be happy.”
Lifting her chin haughtily, she looked around. “Happiness becomes a strange concept when you’re in here. Prison provides you with a unique perspective.”
“Does the unique perspective have to do anything with dating vampires?”
“You’re being rude again.”
Don’t contradict her. Don’t push her.
But I never learned because I let the anger take hold of me. I was so angry it gave me energy.
“Really, Mom? You keep saying these things about how your opinions have changed and how you’ve gained perspective and wisdom, but you never specify what opinions. Where’s the wisdom? About what?”
She glared at me. “You can’t understand.”
“Try me. Tell me the great truths about life that you’ve learned here. I’m listening.”
“You’re not. You want to humiliate me.”
“No, Mom. I’ve never wanted anything like that. And if you really knew me, you’d see that. I’m just hoping that one day, I will notice some sign that you actually care about me. And don’t give me the usual bullshit about wanting what’s best for me. I want you to care about who I am on the inside, about what I feel and what I think. You used to be interested in my grades, my reputation, my style, my classy boyfriend, and the people I hung out with in college, and silly me, I thought that meant you cared. But do you give a shit about me as an actual person?”
“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m your mother.”
“You care whether I take the bus when I go to the beach, but did you ask about my day there? I could tell you about how Russel makes me feel. He ran to the grocery store at seven in the morning so he could make me breakfast before I got up, even though he didn’t even know how to cook eggs. He listens to me, asks me questions, and remembers every word I say. And even though he’s more than thirty years older than me, he respects the hell out of me at work, and not once have I heard him say anything the least bit condescending.”
Squinting, she tilted her head to the side. Her previous irritation vanished, replaced by cold curiosity. “At work? You work with him?”
Fuck.
The couple of seconds I needed to regroup after my blunder was enough for her.
She cackled, but there was no humor in her laugh. “Benedict, sometimes I believe you’re a changeling because I couldn’t possibly have produced a child filled with such pure naivete. An older vampire you work with has been feeding from you for a couple of weeks, and you’re building a picket fence. When he dumps you and Anthony Fowles fires you, come visit me again. Maybe then you’ll appreciate some of your mother’s wisdom.”
No matter how hard I’d tried to prepare, I had always been helpless against her cruelty.
My eyes burned, but I didn’t let the tears fall, not until I was walking down the hall. The impassive faces of the prison guards created an appropriate audience for my humiliation. She was right about one thing—I was naive as fuck. I had hoped to feel a smidgen of my mother’s love, but my mother was Julia Perkins.
The bathroom for visitors smelled of chlorine. I washed my face, but I still looked like shit. I tried to paste on a smile so Russel wouldn’t notice anything, but of course, he saw through me.
As soon as I entered the car, he put his sunglasses aside and opened his arms to hug me over the console. Did he think I was unhappy because my mother was in prison?
“Eddie, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”
I didn’t have the strength to fight it. My tears soaked his collar.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a few minutes.
I shook my head.
“Okay.”
He kissed my forehead and petted my hair.
