“No, you cannot,” he responds curtly. Like her boss. Which I guess he was a few years ago. “You need to leave.”
She throws her head back and cackles like a hyena. “What? Why would I do that?”
“Because your daughter and I are in love, and you’re no longer welcome in our house. Sure, you can stop by for coffee and spend time with Dolly, I respect that, even encourage it, but that’s it.”
My heart stops in my chest. He just said it. So blunt. So matter-of-fact. Love. That word. That word means everything to me and I didn’t even know that I needed love. I feel the tears tickling my eyeballs, but I don’t cry because it’s easier to hold back a sob when happiness is in your heart.
I see the moment my mom digests all this. Her face whitens and her mouth hangs open, almost comically. She slouches, looking like someone just told her Nana died, and balls her hands into fists.
“What the fuck? Dahlia, have you been fucking my husband behind my back?”
This makes me want to scream. He is not really her husband and she’s the one who’s been unfaithful for years. She only cares because she never stood a chance.
“Mother, you were never a real couple and you know it.”
“You ungrateful, little slut!” she screams, running toward me while waving her fists. Holy shit. I have two seconds to decide what I want to do and I don’t want to punch my mom in the face, so reluctantly, I move away and dodge her hand by an inch. She stumbles forward from the impact but doesn’t fall. When she twists to face me again, I notice her slur and the way her eyes are swimming in their sockets. Fucking drunk.
“Mom, I never meant to hurt you. But I knew you weren’t a real couple. I love him, Mother, I really do. And he promised to financially take care of you out of respect for me.”
“He is thirty-two! You are eighteen! Do you realize how sick that is?!”
Oh, come on! She had sex with men with a larger age gap and we all know that, because some of them were casual boyfriends who I’ve actually met.
“Mom,” I say gently. “He’s all that I have. All that I want. Please, for once, don’t be selfish and ruin this for me.”
“You have me!” she roars louder.
“You’re not around all that much. I’m surprised you even know how old I am, considering I didn’t even get so much as a phone call on my birthday.”
“Please, Dahlia. You don’t care about silly things like birthdays! Is that what this is about? You need some attention so you seduce your step-father?!” She waves her fist again, but this time, Graham steps forward and holds her elbows in place.
“Annabelle, pull yourself together please.”
“You fucked her before you fucked me?” she spits out. “Why? Because she’s younger? Got nicer tits?” You can barely decipher what she’s saying, she’s slurring so bad.
“Ah, whatever. She’s always been a little bitch.” She waves me off and turns around back to the car, and it stings so bad. “You deserve each other, two fucking assholes. I took care of her when no one else did. She ruined my youth. My life. And this is the thanks I get?”
“You’re my mother!” I scream behind her back. “And you did a shitty job. You never asked me how school was, or if I had a boyfriend, or what’s my best friend’s name. You never got me Christmas presents, Graham did. All you did was fuck Julio and lie about your whereabouts.”
“I’m calling the cops!” She’s grasping for straws now, and she knows it.
“Too bad I’m eighteen!”
She doesn’t even turn around to acknowledge me, just gets in her car and zig-zags out of our parking lot.
I stay rooted to the ground, but somehow, even though she’s been nasty to me, the minute her Mustang is out of sight, I feel lighter somehow. I take a deep breath, feeling a smile spreading across my face. How weird. Now why would I feel so…good?
“She’s the past,” I hear my lover say, clasping my hand in his. “And I’m your future, Dolly. Welcome to your future. It’s a lot more fun than anything you’ve experienced.”
Two years later
Graham
“Come on, say it.” The sound of Dolly suckling on my cock almost makes me want to give in and tell her what she wants to hear. Almost.
“You can’t milk it out of me, Dolly, even though that’s what you’re doing, quite literally.”
I gather all her hair up in into a fist, moving it out of her face to get a better look at those perfect, pouty lips of hers. After two years, the sight of her mouth on me still hasn’t gotten old, and I’d venture to guess that it never will.