I didn't make it to my therapy appointment.
Sitting out in her car parked outside of the rent house, my mother ambushed me on my way to get some emotional healing, not realizing how impeccably damaging her timing really was.
"What are you doing here? Didn't tear me apart enough the other night, so you came back to add insult to injury?"
She resigned herself with her hands clasped in front of her body as she escaped her car, her hair draped in my favorite braided style in the front- a style she rarely wore because it would emphasize her Cherokee heritage, which wasn't necessarily something that she wanted to emulate to the rest of the world.
"I came to talk some sense into you, my only daughter."
I grimaced at her sharp tone and icy words.
"I don't know what 'sense' you're talking about, I can assure you I am very much in my own right mind. You mean you want to talk me into doing whatever you want me to do, which I'm assuming is apologizing to Christian's father so dad's political career isn't dead in the water. Am I getting warmer?"
"Lydia. I don't know where we went wrong," she said, moving closer to me as if to make an emotional appeal to me.
She was mistaken if she thought that I was going to fall for that. I came to her after the assault, and she was all for getting justice for what had happened to me, until she realized just who Christian's father was. That left me all alone, drowning in a sea of naysayers and accusations saying I was just doing it for attention and that I had probably wanted it, I just regretted it after the fact.
They didn't see me as a person, they saw a girl that they could slut shame and taunt until she lost every piece of her that used to be unique and beautiful, tainted and stained forever by the actions of one boy but also by the cruel and heartless words and actions of a society as a whole that was rigged against her.
"No, that's not going to work on me. I know the exact moment we went wrong. Do you want me to enlighten you?"
Her glassy but unwavering eyes kept mine in a stare down, one that I knew I wasn't going to lose.
"I was on your bed with you wrapping me in a hug while I cried into your arms, describing everything in disgusting detail the night that it happened when I came running home barefoot. You were so angry, there was a fire in your eyes that only went out when I mentioned Christian's last name. Dad was on the up and up at work and you had just started your philanthropic work, and I guess you realized that making an enemy of such a powerful man wasn't a good look for you. Do you remember what you said to me then, when you put it all together in your head?"
She didn't have it in herself to continue with our stare down, but it didn't feel like I had won anything. Proving to your own mother how utterly wrong and disgusting her actions were against her own daughter was loss enough for the both of us.
She didn't bother responding to my question, so I answered myself for her- the blatant disregard for her own flesh and blood echoing through those words that had haunted me for years and still did in my nightmares.
"You said, 'Are you sure that's what happened? Maybe you were sending him mixed signals...sometimes boys don't understand subtle things like that'. I told you again how I had fought against him, crying, begging for him to let me go, but he never did, at least not until his mother interrupted us. You told me that I had to be exaggerating, and that we'd talk in the morning. You shut down like an emotionless zombie while I was sitting there pouring my heart out to you, but it was like you didn't even care. Dad believed me, though, and you fought him tooth and nail with the trial but the end result was what you wanted anyway, so I guess you're happy with yourself."
"I'm not."
"I'm sorry, what was that?"
"I said I'm not. Happy with myself... I regret what I did back then and I want to apologize. I went to Christian's father and explained the next day that you were confused with what had happened and didn't want the other girls to treat you differently. I told him it was...that it was consensual."
My eyes flickered to the green grass shorn close to the ground, the dragonflies piercing the outcroppings of vibrant cerulean sky as their translucent waves rode the gentle breeze that floated away with any last remnants of love for my mother in that moment.
"And that was why his father came after me so ruthlessly in the court room that day when I was on the witness stand. He truly believed his son wasn't guilty, and that I was just accusing him because I didn't want the girls calling me a slut at school. Heh. It kind of makes sense now, in a twisted, disgusting way. Is that all you wanted? To clear your damn conscience? Because I have somewhere I need to be. Oh, and don't bother coming back around, you're dead to me."
"Lydia-"
"No, Adsila. I have said my peace, and you just drove the final nail into your coffin of our relationship. I want nothing more to do with you. I'll contact my father separately from you, but I never want to see your face ever again."
"Lydia? What's going on?"
Of course Emmett would have chosen that time to come home, Lucas and Reed trickling out of the house as they heard my voice raise.
"Nothing, nothing at all."
"Mom? What are you doing here?"
"I just came to apologize to your sister...and to congratulate her into getting into Harvard."
"How did you know about that," I seethed, the numbness ebbing away into something nasty and twisted writhing inside of me. It was dark and melancholic, but tinged with a hint of masochism and I was terrified to find out the limits of this newfound blackness inside of me.
"I have some friends in the admissions there, you know it was our dream for you to go to an Ivy, so when they emailed me with your acceptance after you set up your account I wanted to come by in person."
"Oh, so you only dared to come 'apologize' to me when you found out the success I'd found on my own? You saw that I could further your political agenda- the smart daughter going to Harvard. Anything to make you look better to the public, right? You're even worse than I thought."
Unshed tears glistened in her hardened eyes, but I wasn't falling for it, not anymore. The noose that she had tightened over the years and years that I was under her thumb was finally untied, the sunlight finally shining on the despicable acts that she had committed.
"Mom, why don't you just go? I'll talk to Lydia."
"No, there's nothing you can say that will change my mind about the way that I feel about the woman standing before me. She is nothing, dead to me. Worse than dead, she doesn't even exist."
Emmett flinched in the corner of my eye but I didn't have time to try and articulate why he was offended or shocked at what I had said. He still didn't know the entire story, and while we were closer to him knowing everything that had happened, I still wasn't there yet.
Everyone's eyes were on me, the sweat dripping down my forehead onto the sidewalk below me a sign that the panic was sure to follow.
I had to get out of there. I looked down- high tops counted as tennis shoes right?
"If she's not going to leave, then I am."
I took off running down the neighborhood sidewalk, ignoring the calls of my roommates after me, one standing out against the rest. His voice was like steel cutting butter, a shock to my system but I couldn't turn around.
I had to run, pound the pavement to eradicate the tumultuous emotions roaring inside of me like a fierce tsunami encroaching on a vulnerable shoreline.
Each step was like a new wave crashing against a cliffside, the overspray of sea salt like the tears dripping down my cheeks.
I didn't stop until I ended up at Nate's apartment, but it wasn't for comfort.
I was there for a vengeance that dwelled inside of my soul and could only be quelled with a fiery tempestuous pain.
I patted my pocket for the taser that I knew was already there and tread to the front door of the apartment.
The key was still under the potted plant to the left of the door, exactly where I'd left it. I unlocked the door and took a breath.