“It’s homemade. With real garlic, just the way you like it.” I’d made sure to pick up fresh ingredients at the store the day before, and knew to use them first at the beginning of the week before they were no longer considered fresh. Especially since, now that school had started, I wouldn’t have time to hit the market after school and still get my chores done before she came home.
She nodded without once making eye contact with me, only tipped her glass back and took a drink of her wine. I knew what that meant—she had a bad day at work. Mom wasn’t much of a drinker. Usually, one glass would relax her and two would get her drunk. Granted, her one glass was about the size of two normal ones. But with one, she would act calmer and tended to leave me alone, although I could never fully appreciate those times because I’d spend it worried she’d help herself to another.
I watched, holding my breath, as she took her wine upstairs and left me alone in the kitchen. Her bedroom door closed shortly after, and I could finally release the air I’d held onto. The timer on the oven said twenty minutes, which gave me just enough time to fold the laundry and put them away before she’d be back down and expect to eat.
Luckily, the clothes were still warm and wrinkle-free, so I sat on the couch in the living room and sorted hers from mine. If she knew I’d washed our clothes together, she’d probably have something negative to say, which is yet another reason why I never let her watch me do the laundry. One load was always easier than two, and less time consuming.
As predicted, Mom stayed in her room until the timer went off, alerting us that the food was done. I stuck the bread slices on a pan and into the cooling oven while cutting into the casserole dish of lasagna and preparing our plates. I’d done this so many times I had it down to a science. Ever since my dad took off five years ago, the house duties had fallen on me. Which hadn’t been easy on an eleven-year-old, but I quickly learned to adapt. I had to take care of the laundry, the dinners, the cleaning, and making sure to stay out of her way.
Before me, that had been Dad’s job. But he couldn’t take it anymore and left. And I wished every single day that he’d come back for me and take me away from this nightmare. But he never did, and he never would. He met a new woman, one who loved him and treated him right. She had her own kids, and even though I’d never met them, I’m sure they were better than me. That’s what my mom tells me all the time, at least. He chose them because I wasn’t good enough. He left her because of me. All that may seem like utter bullshit, but in reality, it was the truth.
Mom got pregnant with me while they were dating. Dad wasn’t ready to settle down, but she guilt-tripped him into it. He tried his best, put in eleven solid years, stayed because he felt bad about walking away from his child, but when he looked at me, I’m sure all he saw was a life sentence.
A jail cell.
That’s what I’d become to him. I was the mousetrap that snapped his tail off—more accurately, his manhood. Because Mom had carried his balls around in her purse the entire time they were together. She was a bitch to him… All. The. Time. Nothing he ever did had been good enough. I’m sure she resented him for resenting her. Endless cycle that swept me up in the middle of it. Then, one day, Dad had had enough and left, ending the cyclone of nightmares—for him. Except, once that happened, I got chewed up, spit out, and left to fend for myself. In my dad’s defense, I’m sure he had no idea Mom would treat me the way she’d always treated him. After all, she’s the one who wanted me in the first place.
Except now she doesn’t anymore.
I’m no longer a pawn in her game.
I’m now her real life Cinderella. Only problem is, in the fairy tale, Cinderella was pretty and caught the eye of a prince. She had mice and a fairy godmother to help and encourage her. To keep her company. I had squat. Zip. Zilch. Nada.
I was utterly alone.
“Think you can pull off a four point oh this year?” Mom asked between bites of food, pulling me out of my depressing, self-absorbed thoughts. That’s all she cared about, my grades. Yet she didn’t seem to understand that being her bitch all the time took away from my studies. She didn’t care about that.
“It shouldn’t be a problem.”
“That’s what you said last year and then fell short at the end. Don’t let that happen again. You can’t have two years with low GPA scores. You need to get into a good college and make something of yourself. I won’t support you forever.”
It was the same talk over and over again. Never ending. Last year, I ended it with a 3.95 GPA. But that wasn’t good enough. I heard all the time how I needed to pull it up this year so I could apply to good colleges. She didn’t care where I went to school. She resented me so much that she just wanted me out of the house, and she saw college as an escape route. And the only reason she wanted me to attend a good school was so she could brag to everyone at the office about how smart her child was. Because, apparently, a 3.95 GPA means I’m stupid. It wasn’t like she planned to pay for my school. I had to worry about scholarships and student loans. I certainly wouldn’t be eligible for grants since my mother made too much, yet wouldn’t pay for anything. They didn’t care about that part. All they paid attention to was her bottom line.
Yeah, my life sucked, and I had nothing to look forward to. Even college came with a headache. I’d leave one hellhole for a mountain of debt. But at least I wouldn’t be under her thumb anymore. That was something to line my cloud with.
“I had nearly straight A’s last semester. And my schedule is fairly simple this semester. I’ll be fine. I’ll get that shining four point oh for you.”
“You know the good schools look at more than just grades. You need more than an A in art or physical fitness to get accepted. You need challenging classes. That perfect GPA won’t mean shit if you got it by taking the easy route. And they look at extracurricular activities, too. I’ve been telling you that since freshman year, yet you never listen to me. You’ll be lucky to get accepted by a regular, run-of-the-mill college. Is that what you want? A degree anyone could get? Where are your standards?” Her lip curled up as she rolled her eyes, showing her disgust for me. At least she didn’t add in her famous line: You’re going to end up just like your father, no education and living off others.
Yet she conveniently leaves out the part where he dropped out of college to help raise me and allow her to finish her degree. Yeah, why would she take any of the blame? And she also doesn’t recognize the fact that if I had extracurricular activities, I wouldn’t be able to clean her house or make her dinners. Those were all the extracurricular activities I could handle. I would know this because when I was a freshman, I participated in afterschool groups. And then I had to catch the city bus home because she wouldn’t pick me up from school, meaning dinner wouldn’t be ready on time—meaning I had to deal with the consequences. Needless to say, I didn’t stay in those groups long, leaving me even less chance of making friends.
It was no wonder how I’d made it to my junior year in high school without one single real friend. Hell, I was lucky if people noticed me in the hall and said hi. I only hoped college would be different.
Only a year and a half away.
“I’m taking honors classes this year, Mom.”
“When you could be taking AP.”
I didn’t even offer a reply to that. If I took AP classes, I wouldn’t have enough time to focus on my studies, and that would produce lower grades, meaning my ever-important GPA would fall. I couldn’t win with this woman, so I closed my mouth and finished eating. I guess she had nothing else to say, either, because she stayed silent through the remainder of the meal. It was too much to ask that she at least compliment my cooking. But I’d gladly accept the silence instead of more insults and lectures.