Metis Returns

The mirror

"Clara wake up!" I awoke within a frenzy, forgetting I was still in the bridal salon with my sister and mother. They both were trying their best to shove my sister in her wedding gown that seemed to be just a bit smaller than her, most likely from her gaining a little weight. They both looked beyond pissed at me for falling asleep, but how could they be mad when I'm catching up with the sleep I lost trying to finish painting the Parthenon for a client that wanted it ten days earlier than ordered.

"Get up and help us!" My mother scorned to me as she was trying to carefully but forcefully zip up the dress.

"You guys are just going to break the dress, why don't you just get it altered if it's too tight?" My sister stopped with nothing but mortification on her face, making my mother stop to realize she was about to cry.

"I'm fat?!" She wailed as she planted her face in her hands. My eyes had rolled to the back of my head, making me regret anything I said, knowing my mother was about to give me the ultimate blame or attempt to make me feel little.

"Oh sweetie- don't cry, don't cry! Charlie will be here any minute, you'll ruin your makeup!" My mother said to Kate before she took me by the arm, dragging me outside of the dressing room, surely for a lecture.

"What the hell is your problem? Look at what you did to Kate." My mother said to me with a tight grip on my arm. I snatched my arm away from her, irritated for her to treat me as if i'm some little kid throwing a tantrum in the middle of a supermarket.

"All I said was maybe you should get the dress altered instead of ruining it by forcing it on her. What's so wrong with saying that?"

"How can you be so insensitive?! You know she has been trying so hard to keep her figure." I was bewildered at her even protesting about her weight.

"Mom, Kate is pregnant, what do you expect?" She just shook her head and looked back at my sister who was still wailing about her weight as she analyzed herself in the mirror, grabbing onto the little fat she had, shaking it up and down as tears streamed down her face. Good Lord.

"You know what you're just-" She stopped herself, giving me the feeling she was about to tell me the things I knew she felt but never would say to my face. Until now.

"Go on, I'm just what Mom." I challenged, her face fumed with the fires of hell.

"Jealous! To the extreme! Since Kate is the one getting married with Charlie and you're not! You know if you just gave a man what he wanted in the first place then maybe you would be the one getting married. But honestly I can't see any man with you." I stood there, with ears filled with the words I expected yet, I knew it wasn't something I wanted to hear from anyone. Especially my own mother. How could she even find the heart, even with anger, to tell me such things she meant with every bit of her soul. I said nothing but looked at her and smiled. I then walked past her, to go into the dressing room to retrieve my bag. Kate was still crying until the moment she saw me walk out the dressing room with my things.

"Where do you think you're going?" My mother and kate said in synchronization, probably with the same emotions as well by the tell of their tone.

"Like you care." I said as I exited the bridal salon. My mother was wrong, I couldn't care any less about getting married when i'm just nineteen. Especially with Charlie. Charlie was a mistake, a mistake I will have to call my in law and go on in life with the constant gossip about me and him. It's not like I don't care about him...it's just I don't care to see or talk to him. Not with everything he did to me....

Walking down the sidewalk, I notice barely anyone was around me, making it less embarrassing that my face clearly showed how I was about to cry. But with my luck, I ended up running into a guy that was for sure in a rush. He bumped into me so hard, my bag flew out of my hands and into the street where cars carelessly ran over it. The jerk didn't even stop to say sorry or anything, he was already long gone. I literally experienced a sum up of my life in less than a few minutes.