Cruel Kisses (It's Just High School #2) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,44
low like she’s hiding somewhere. “Are you all right? Where are you now?”
I look around the hotel room with LA just outside the window. Do I tell her the truth?
“On a bus headed for Chicago.”
The lie just falls from my lips and I wince at the unfamiliar taste of it on my tongue.
There’s silence for a bit, like she knows I’m lying. Please, don’t call me out on it.
“Okay, you didn’t buy the ticket as Mia, did you?”
“No.” I quickly say, dread tightening my insides. “What’s going on? You didn’t give me any answers.”
“Mia, I can’t talk right—”
“No!” I shout, panic rising in me as everything that has happened in the past seventy-two hours slams into me, weakening my knees. This is too much. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just send me away in the middle of the night and not tell me why.”
“Baby—”
“Why?” I grit out. “I’m going out of my mind, conjuring shit that doesn’t make any sense.”
She sighs on the other line, and I can feel her agitation.
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
Everything. But for now, I’ll start with a simple one. “Did I really see dad strike you last night?” I croak, disbelief still coursing through me but at the back of my mind, there’s something there… a familiarity that scares the hell out of me.
“Yes,” she whispers.
Oh God.
“Was that the first time he did that?”
“No.”
Have I been living a lie this entire time?
“Did he do that to—” I trail off, unable to finish the question as an ache sears through me, until I start trembling.
“To my sister?” Nicky continues, blowing out a breath. “I would like to tell you that it didn’t happen. That your father is a good man. That he isn’t an abusive, power hungry jerk, but he is.”
Oh God.
“Why don’t I know this?” I whisper, something bitter and brittle lodged in my throat as my nose tingles. I don’t want to cry, but I’m close. God, I’m so close to breaking down and I know when it finally happens, there’s no stopping it. “How could I not know who he was?”
“Because you chose to forget.”
Chose to forget? I know it’s possible to forget some particular memories, but my mind doesn’t work like that. Right now, I can recount every single conversation, shouting match and every touch Julian and I ever exchanged with each other. In as much as I want to forget everything with him, I can’t, so how can I forget things about my father?
“That’s not even possible.”
“With you it is,” Nicky says. “You have an extraordinary mind, Mia and after what happened before…” she trails off.
“What?” I prompt, my heart racing. “What happened before?”
“You were so young. The doctors and therapists said you forced the trauma away, shutting it down.”
Trauma? Jesus…
“What trauma?” I whisper, my heart pounding now.
Just then, I hear commotion, then sounds like people talking in the background.
“I have to go. We’re making arrangements for the funeral and—"
“Can I be there?” The question tumbles out of me in a rush, like a torrent. But that shit quickly dries when the silence on the line is her response.
“Mia…”
“Please. I never…” I choke out, closing my eyes shut but when I do, I see her, Nancy, spasming in that bed. I quickly open my eyes and focus on the window in front of me. “I never said goodbye.”
Because I killed her.
Do murderers say goodbye to their victims? Are they that civil if they couldn’t even be bothered to do something while said victim was taking their last breath?
She sighs, then silence stretches between us.
“I know you want to say goodbye, but you can’t come here.”
I can hear the finality in her voice, and I know better than to press the situation. I’m not going to argue with her, I’m just going to make my own decisions. I’m still close to Palos Verdes, I can still find a way to be there for funeral without her knowing.
“At least tell me when it’s happening,” I whisper, brokenly. “When are you going to lay her to rest? I know they’re talking about her on TV that she’s sick.”
“Yeah, we haven’t announced to her publicist that she’s…” she trails off again.
She can’t even say it. I don’t want to believe it. It’s fucked up.
“Okay.”
“Yeah, but we’re planning for the funeral to be in five days, you know, to give everyone who loved her a chance to grieve.”
The fuck? What the hell does she expect me to do with