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“Not that long ago. I…” I can’t do this. Pretending I wanted a change, like I had any say in what was done to me. There’s a lump in my throat. I can’t swallow back. It rises until my eyes sting. “Mom, it’s awful. It’s terrible. Somebody cut my hair while I fell asleep in class. They cut off my whole braid, and that’s not even the worst part.”
Things have to be bad for me to pour my heart out to her, but it’s been so long, and I’ve been carrying all of this around by myself. Telling Maya is one thing. She’s my friend. But even telling a negligent mother is better than not telling her at all.
I drop to the sofa with my bag at my feet and bury my face in my hands. “Every day, Mom. Every day, somebody does something or says something to humiliate me.”
“Oh, Wren…” There it is, right on schedule. The disbelief in her voice. Just like the disbelief I got when I tried to tell her about her boyfriend, who would “accidentally” open my bedroom door while I was getting dressed. And the others.
“No.” Her head snaps back when mine snaps up. “You are not going to tell me I’m wrong, I’m being dramatic, or I’m making things up. You see this.” I run my hands through my hair, shaking it out. “You know I wouldn’t have done it on my own. Gooutside, take a look at my car, see where I stripped the paint off because I had to remove the word slut from it. Somebody gave me a spray paint job while I was in class one day.”
“Slut?” Her lips pull back from her teeth in a grimace. “Why would they call you that?”
“I guess they assume it runs in the family.” Right away, I regret it. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, but not fast enough to keep the tears from filling her eyes. “But it’s kind of true, too. All the things people are doing to me is because of you, the affair you had. And the men before that. Everybody hates me there because of your reputation—and besides, I don’t belong, anyway. We’re from completely different worlds.”
She runs her sleeves under her eyes before releasing a shaky breath. “And there I was,” she whispers, “thinking I was setting you up for life, getting you in there.”
“How did you do it?” I’m practically ready to leap across the sagging couch and tackle her for information. “How did you get me in? Why?”
“I’m not going to have this conversation with you right now. What you’ve told me?—”
“What I’ve told you is my reality, and I need to know why it is. Did you do something bad to get me in? Something… I don’t know, something somebody else would resent you for? Hate you for?”
“Now you’re being dramatic,” she scoffs.
Wrong thing to say. “Yes, because this isn’t even the first note I’ve gotten! I’ve been threatened and assaulted and taunted and vandalized, and that’s not even the full list! This is pretty damn dramatic for me, Mom!”
“Robert!” she snaps. “All right? Robert got you in.”
Robert? “Robert… Weston?” I whisper, remembering the conversation I had with Briggs about it.
Her head bobs before she wipes her eyes again. “Right.”
“Why would he do that?” When I remember the reaction he had when he saw me last night, I have a hard time believing he would go out of his way to ensure my education.
“I told him to.”
“And he just… did? What even gave you the idea?” Something is not adding up. “Are you blackmailing him or something?”
“We made a deal.” Her voice is thick with tears, but somehow also flat. Emotionless. “If I did what he wanted, he had to do what I wanted. And I wanted you to get out of this.”
Slowly, she turns her head to look at me. “I want better for you. I want a good life for you. How else were you ever going to afford college? You would end up just like me, and I can’t stand that idea, because you’re better than me!” Now there’s fire in her words, enough to heat the air between us. “You’re smart, and you have talent, and you’re going to have a good life!”
“What did you have to do, though?” I need to know. No matter what it is. “You said you did something he wanted in exchange.”
Turning her head to face the TV, she says, “I made my choice. That’s all you need to know.”
“Choice? What choice? Tell me!” My hand closes around her arm. I think of Briggs, all the times he’s grabbed me this way. But this is different. I’m not doing it to hurt her.
“I…” She keeps me waiting through a deep breath before blurting it out. “I was pregnant. I got pregnant by him, and right away, he told me I had to have an abortion.”
My hand drops to the faded cushion under me. “Oh, Mom…”
“Like I said, I made my choice.” She runs her hands over her flushed cheeks. “I told him I didn’t want to at first, and then he offered to get you into the university for free. Because he knew how much I wanted that for you.”
“He did?”
“I told him I wanted a better life for you. I told him how smart you are, how creative and how you’re the one thing I’m proud of. He knew that. He knew that was the only thing he could offer that would make me agree.”
All the air leaves my body in one deep sigh. “And what did I do it for?” she asks, almost laughing. “It could get you killed. I could get you killed. And I already killed my… my other…” Folding her arms over her stomach, she closes her eyes, shaking from the force of fresh sobs.
