“I’m not a kid, Melissa. So don’t talk to me like I am one.”
“You’re acting like one! Unable to do me a favor by picking up my dinner on your way home—late.”
I rubbed my brow, hating the tension ratcheting up higher there. “Andyoucouldn’t go pick it up yourself?”
“No,” she said. “Why should I when you’d be going that way at that time?”
“Well, I wasn’t. I was stuck at work longer than I thought I’d be.”
“Why? Because you lack the backbone to tell them that you have to leave on time? To get my dinner?”
“I didn’t even know you’d ordered dinner!”
She shrugged. “Then maybe you should check your damn phone.”
“No.” I narrowed my eyes. “I can’t check my phone on the clock. I’m there to work. To help people. Not to cater to whatever the hell you want.”
“After all I’ve done for you…” She lowered her arms as though she struggled with the urge to slap me.
If I had a dollar for every time she threw that in my face. She’d taken me in when our parents died, and she would never,everlet me forget her big, ol’ sacrifice in becoming my guardian. Had I known what life would be like with her, I would’ve preferred to go into the system and try my luck with fosters.
“I didn’t check my phone because I was busy. We were busy because of staffing and the number of patients. That’s not my fault.”
“And it’s not mine either.”
I fisted my hands as I thrust them to my sides. “I didn’t say it was! Stop trying to make everything about you!”
“So I give up years of my life to help raise you, and?—”
“Raise me?” I was two seconds from strangling her. “I was fifteen when they died. I was already doing everything around the house because they were too high to bother. Since I was a kid,Idid everything. I raised myself.”
“Oh.” She huffed. “That’s how you see it? Then see yourself out and make it on your own.”
“No.” I pointed at the door. “Yousee yourself out.Ipay the rent on this place.”
She leaned closer, as though she could intimidate me with the one inch she had on me. “Myname is on the lease. Remember that, bitch?”
I laughed, too incredulous at her attitude to hold it in. This laughter would turn into hysterical cackles soon. If I couldn’t cry, I had to vent somehow, but nothing about this was funny.
“You want to kick me out? Maybe I should go. See how long you’ll last until they evict you for not paying rent.”
“Shut up. Just shut the fuck up.”
I shook my head, dropping my phone into my purse. She hadn’t worked a goddamn day in her life, and as long as she manipulated me to stay with her, she wouldn’t.
When? When will I ever get the courage to just leave?
“I want my dinner,” she said.
“Then go walk out there and pick it up,” I shot back as I opened the fridge door. “I don’t see why you’re ordering out, anyway. You don’t have money for it.”
“I used your card.”
I stood up and glared at her. “What the fuck, Melissa?”
“I was hungry and you were taking forever at work to come home and make something.”
I smashed my hand on my face and growled. “You’re not two. Make something yourself.” Then I frowned and looked back in the fridge to move things around. “Besides, I made a huge bowl of spaghetti the other day so we’d have leftovers for a couple of days.”
