AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Get her off my property now!” my mother growled, looking nervously around her even though this house was on so much land, the neighbors would have to strain their ears to get even the slightest idea of what we were saying. That didn’t stop my mom from looking as if she would break out into hives.
“No, Mom. You’re going to hear this. Who I sleep with is NO ONE’s business, and you had NO right to air my private life to the public like that. To turn it into something it’s not,” I said, directing the last sentence to my dad. “You guys are the ones who caused this! Couldn’t you just leave it alone?!”
Mother rolled her eyes. “Oh, it was hardly private! If it got back to us, it was surely going to get to the public. No one gets information like that and just sits on it! Especially someone who works at the bottom of the totem pole. They could make a fortune using it to their advantage to blackmail us or who knows what else. We had to say something!” My mother spoke to me as if I had no intelligence whatsoever.
My heart beat a sick rhythm, and I fired back. “Oh, and speaking up in support of me wasn’t an option?”
“How could we support you if you were in danger?” my father said, his face pained and serious.
My mother rolled her eyes again at that. I was guessing they hadn’t come to an agreement on whether or not I was a victim.
“Danger? DANGER? I’m not in any danger! I mean, knock on wood with all this claiming of danger over my life. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you deaf or did you not watch the press conference? I chose these men. Me. I saw them. I liked them. I wanted them,” I said, not in the least bit embarrassed by professing my desire for them to my parents because well, they were the ones who imposed themselves into my sex life and made it about them.
They grimaced in disgust.
“What is it? Huh, Dad? Do you need to feel like a hero? Does it give you something to make you finally feel good about yourself? Playing the savior this late in life when all the other times you could, you failed?” I said, feeling regret instantly when I saw the look on his face.
He shook his head. “I pity you, Tiffany. I really do.”
They started to walk away but I wouldn’t let them as rage took over.
“Pity me!” I screamed. “Pity me? You’re just as bad as each other. You’re both out of your minds!”
My body shook again as it felt like reality distorted itself. As if I deserved this punishment despite how much I yelled and screamed to help them see sense. As if I was the one who should feel guilty and embarrassed, not them. My chest tightened, and tears sprang to my eyes. I couldn’t control them as they poured out. It was like they were on the other side of an invisible box that I was trapped in, screaming my lungs out, but they couldn’t hear me.
My body swayed, and it felt like I was about to faint from the sheer pressure of all the emotions beating up my body.
Chapter 18
Tiffany
Atthesoundofmy tears, my parents paused. The look of concern they gave me wasn’t the soft and warm kind. Their looks held judgment… and exactly what they said, pity. They looked at me as if I were a poor thing who had just completely lost my mind. I was beginning to believe that I had, looking back up at them feeling broken and fragile as every single part of my body shook, including my brain.
My voice was lower when I spoke again.
“All my life, all I’ve done was try to make you proud of me. To live up to your expectations. The first twenty-one years of my life, I lived for you. I lived your lives, the lives you chose for me. And I’m so grateful that I actually love law; otherwise, it would’ve felt like a prison. Or at least I would’ve been aware of the prison I was trapped in sooner. But my love for the law doesn’t make the way you’ve enforced your control over my life okay. And though I’m grateful to have reached the milestones I have, it doesn’t make your distance and coldness acceptable.” I sniffled.
“As long as I was perfect, I was worthy of your ‘love,’ right? As long as I didn’t step out of the line you drew for me, then I had value and worth. And as soon as I showed that I have my own mind, that I have desires outside of the ones you chose for me, that I am human, suddenly, I’m dirty, disgusting, pitiful, and unworthy?” I asked, the words feeling too heavy on my tongue, bringing my voice to a whisper.
As I looked at them, they said nothing though my mother’s lips were pressed together as if admitting any errors in her ways would kill her, and she had to keep her mouth shut to not just save face but save her own life. Because the fantasy she created in her head about how life was supposed to be, how parenting was supposed to look, and how her children should behave,washer life. Anything outside of her fantasy was death, and she couldn’t accept it.
My father’s eyes reddened as he turned his head away from me, but tears didn’t fall. He was still holding onto his pride, I could see it. The need to be right about all of this. Because being wrong was too terrifying. Loving me for who I was, was just too much to ask.
I continued, “Even now, you’re trying to control my life, with the publicity, with the attack on my men, with this lawsuit. Don’t you think it’s time you stop? That you just let me be and let me love who I want without getting involved unless I’m in harm’s way. And no, I’m not in harm’s way now, at least not when it comes to the guys.
“Deep down, I think you know that. You can look in my eyes and know that when I tell you I chose these men, and they chose me, that it was mutual, it was consensual, it was legal, I’m telling you the truth. You can see the truth, can’t you? Because if I were lying, you’d see it in my eyes. Everything else can lie, except for the eyes.
“And I’m not saying that if I were in danger, I wouldn’t appreciate your help but if I were in danger, help wouldn’t look like disgust, would it? It wouldn’t look like kicking me out of the firm. It wouldn’t look like publicly disowning me. It wouldn’t look like threatening to call the police on me for ‘trespassing’ when I’m just here to talk to you,” I said. My mother gulped.
“You wouldn’t even know how to love me if you wanted to. But you don’t want to. This isn’t about whether or not you care about my life, or if I’m in danger. This is about you, your image, what people will think of you, control, scaring these men out of my life, scaring me away from them. And because I resisted your control and stood up for my truth despite everything you’ve taken from me, your response is to punish me further.
"Why? Because you didn’t get your way. This isn’t what love looks like, Mom… Dad. You can be disgusted by me, you can disapprove, you can dislike the fact I’m seeing three men at once. It’s different, I get it. But I’m an adult and whether or not you do any of those things, you can also respect the fact that at the very least, if you can’t love me through it all, you have no right to determine who I’m sleeping with,” I finished my soft rant.
My dad’s voice cracked. “I do love you, sweetheart,” he grunted, choking back tears, but mine had already dried as my body grew numb to prevent me from having a nervous breakdown.
“Then drop the case, Dad. Don’t you see that the only thing harming me right now is this? You, my family, the ones who are supposed to love me, you’re the ones bringing me the most pain.” My voice shook.
“Please. You can make this pain stop with one simple decision—dropping the case. You can keep the money. You can even stick to publicly disowning me. But please don’t punish the three innocent men in my life who have done nothing to deserve this. Just take back what you’ve said about them. Say there was a misunderstanding because there was. Tell the truth and drop the case.”
