White Lies (Book 1)

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Hardly anyone in my town knew who my parents were.

Hell, I barely knew who they were, myself. I mean, I at least knew my mother. But only up to a certain extent.

All I knew for certain were the facts. She was thirty-four years old. She worked as a masseuse for the spa resort near the town's central tourism district. She had this vague, dream-like effect about her, and she had once told me that she had been a bit of a hippy back in the day. She'd met my father at a vibrational music festival and would never see him again.

Okay, I'm completely lying. My mother had had a drunken one night-stand with some douche named Joseph and hadn't thought to use a condom.

I'd lived with my mother for seventeen years, and yet she still remained entirely locked out to me. A complete stranger. And I guess I was still this complete stranger to her, too.

She didn't know a thing about me. I believe she never bothered to.

And to me, she was nothing but the stranger woman who had chosen to give me life. And what a life it was. As guilty as I felt for saying this, I probably wouldn't even cry at her funeral.

That's a big, fat lie. Of course I would cry. Being a liar didn't instantly make you heartless.

And right now, I was very glad that our relationship extended to being mere strangers living under the same roof.

We were currently cramped in her small yellow Honda, suffocating in the silence that seemed to fill the car like oxygen. She had received a call from the principal earlier in the afternoon. After a group of teachers had finally pulled Zoe and I apart, Zoe had been sent packing to the hospital. And I had been sent to pack my belongings and leave school grounds immediately.

Suspended for a week. A punishment which seemed eons better than death-against-locker by Zoe.

"So... why exactly did you break the poor girl's nose?" my mother asked, finally breaking the tension. She hadn't yelled, and she hadn't began shouting her torrent of threats. She was simply staring straight ahead, minding her driving, her green eyes never wavering from the road.

"'Poor girl'? She was trying to kill me. I had to do something." I curled my swelling fist, recalling the way it had connected with Zoe's nose, and the satisfying crack that it made as her blood spurted all over her face. I could still remember the whispers which followed me when leaving the school premises, and how anybody in my path had hastily stepped away. I knew breaking her nose wouldn't help ease the rumors surrounding my serial killing tendencies.

But what was there to do now?

"Yes. You had to do something. And that something wasn't just to break her face, Jesabel. What has gotten into you? Why are you adding fuel to all the things they're saying? You're not even a violent person!" her voice had risen an octave higher. I couldn't understand why, but her pale hands were now gripping the steering wheel tightly.

"How would you know? I could be a prostitute for all you knew," I snapped back, making her flinch. I had never hinted to my mother that she had felt like a stranger to me. And she'd never talked about it either.

It was this unspoken rule between us. Never say it out loud.

"Don't. Don't ever say that," was her deadly quiet reply. I had deeply hurt her. I turned my head away from her, trying to hide my own unfurling guilt. Pushing down the tendency that my mind had to spiral into unwanted territory.

Not a lie this time. Our conversations were always this way –stilted and uneasy. Both of us skirting around what we desperately never wanted to address again.

We may have never been close because of it. And yet, she still tried her very best to be a good mother.

We'd driven the rest of the way home in silence. And by the time we had reached the house, my mother had turned around to face me, and was practically trembling with anger. "In your room. Now."

A lie. That never happened. She never yelled or lectured me, like any other parent whose child had just been suspended. In fact, she had left me standing in the middle of the small, cold corridor, before slamming her bedroom door shut. She would not come out for the rest of the night.

She was a fragile woman.