“How so?”
“He took my money, Mason. He made me use my trust fund for college.”
“Poor you,” he says.
Which just pisses me off. Because everyone says that. “Poor Lyssa had to pay her own way through college,” I moan. “Yeah, I get it. Sounds ridiculous and doesn’t garner much sympathy, but five years of private college pretty much ate up that trust fund. It wasn’t meant to be used for college. There was other money for college but he stole it from me. That was my security blanket money and now it’s all gone. He stole from me then he stopped giving me anything when I moved into my apartment. Oh, he sends money still. But I know what that money is. I don’t spend it on me. I do other things with it. Things he would hate,” I spit.
“Things like drugs, and drinking, and clubbing?”
“Why does everyone assume that?”
“Maybe because that’s the image you’re presenting?”
“Well, you know what? Other people’s presumptions aren’t my problem.”
“You’re trying to make me feel sorry for you, Lyssa. And it’s pretty hard to sympathize with your situation. Why don’t you just get a job? Isn’t that what most college graduates do? And why didn’t you just go to a cheaper school? And why did it take you five years to graduate in the first place?”
This is why I don’t talk about myself to people. This is why I can’t form close bonds with friends. These are the questions they ask me. And you know what? It would take a whole lifetime to explain why all this shit matters and why I’m so pissed off about it.
I’m fucked up. That’s the short answer to all those questions. But I’m not going to tell him that. I’m not going to tell anyone that. They can never get past my privilege. They refuse to believe that money, and a country estate, and a well-bred husband won’t make all the bad shit disappear
And I stayed in college for five years because I knew what was coming afterward. Marriage. Forced marriage. I knew my mother—the only person who ever loved me—was going to leave this world very soon and then I’d be all alone. And maybe—just maybe… once she was gone he’d leave me alone.
College felt normal and safe. It made me stronger. And when she died shortly before I graduated I felt ready to break free of my insane stepfather for the first time in my life.
She left me an apartment. So I moved in. Money too. But he stole that because it was in a trust he controlled.
He took it all away. And then he sent me checks every month. Anonymous checks, but come on. I knew who they were from. And I knew the price I’d have to pay if I used that money.
Still, I cashed them, didn’t I?
And then I spent them on something that would make my stepfather burst with rage if he ever found out.
So I do have a job. That’s my job. Cash those checks and use them to show my rage and hate.
But Mason would never believe any of this. He says he’s on my side, but he’s not. He’s on Mason Macintyre’s side, not mine. He thinks I’m this wild thing. He thinks I do these things to rebel because I’m spoiled and unappreciative.
So fuck it. I just don’t say anything to anyone anymore. And trying to explain myself to Mason was a mistake.
“Are you going to answer me?” he asks.
“No,” I say. “I’m not. Because you don’t know me and so you can’t understand me.”
“I’m trying to understand you,” he says.
“Well, you’re doing a shitty job.” He raises an eyebrow at me. But before he can complain about my cussing I say, “Try spanking me with that belt again, Mason Macintyre, and I’ll hit you back.”
He rubs his jaw, moving it back and forth, then says, “I guess we’re even now.”
“Hmmm,” I grumble.
“You didn’t answer my other question.”
“What other question?”
“What do you know how to cook?”
“I don’t wanna cook,” I snap. “I don’t want to do any of this shit. And I certainly don’t want to get married.”
He sighs, then stands up. “Then go to your room.”
“Go to my room?” I laugh. “What are you? My stand-in father?”
“Well, you’re certainly acting like a stand-in teenage daughter.”
I fume at that. But I have practiced fuming privately for a very long time so I hold it in. He doesn’t deserve to see my anger. He doesn’t deserve to know me.
I get up, straighten out my wrinkled dress, and say, “Fine.”
And then I walk over to the stairs and go up.
I’m just about to turn down the hall to find a new bedroom to occupy when he says, “No. If you want to act like a child, I’ll treat you like a child. Go mope in that princess room.”