Furious - By Jill Wolfson Page 0,19
Alix, why don’t you ask Meg a question about herself?”
Alix groans, embarrassment or flattery over and done with. “What is this, some stupid icebreaker game? Are we in kindergarten?”
Stephanie, too, has an edge on her voice. “I have a question. For Alix. If you love surfing so much, if the ocean is so important to you, why don’t you care when people treat it like shit?”
Alix doesn’t miss a beat. “How do you know what I care or don’t care about?”
“You’re selfish!”
“Who made you the judge of me?”
“You only care about you.”
“What do you know about me?”
The insults go on like this as Alix and Stephanie glare at each other. I’m sure Ambrosia is now sorry that she ever invited them. Only to my surprise, when I glance over, she actually seems to be enjoying their whole nasty back-and-forth. There’s an expression of amusement, even excitement, on her face. She turns to me with a sparkly smile.
“So Meg, a question for you. Whom do you hate more—the foster parents who make money off of your misery or the mom who threw you away like garbage the day you were born?”
Her question catches me in the throat. I actually feel it lodged there, a shape that’s huge and sharp and won’t let me swallow. I can’t believe that she asked that, that anyone would ask it. The question hangs there, grows and twists in me. I feel trapped, almost panicked for my life.
But then … but … and here’s the truth. The question she just asked? It’s the very question that I feel like I’m asking myself all the time, late at night, early in the morning, a question I keep stifling and never dare to answer, not even to myself. On the surface it’s the rudest, meanest question, but it’s also the most honest one I’ve ever been asked.
Alix and Stephanie have gone silent, waiting to see what I will do. Cry? Get mad? Answer?
When I turn to Ambrosia, I see encouragement in her. She honestly wants to know. She wants to get into my head and see what’s going on there. She doesn’t want me to lie or to pretend anymore. She wants to know who I really am—when I’m not faking, when I’m not scared, when I’m being totally true to myself.
The lump in my throat dissolves.
I give myself permission to answer: Whom do I hate most? In my mind, a blank face floats to the surface. No eyes, no nose, no hair. It’s the mother I never knew. But to express the level of hate I want to express right now, a blank face isn’t good enough. It won’t let me focus. I need actual eyes and ears and the sound of a hateful voice. I need specific deeds where I was wronged. I push aside the blank face and let the answer to Ambrosia’s question rise like scum on water.
“Foster mother,” I say. “This one. I hate her. I call her the Leech. It suits her.”
Ambrosia rubs a finger along the perfect polish of her thumb. “Should this leech be allowed to treat you the way she does?”
“No.”
“Louder! More outrage.”
“No!”
“Much better. And what would you like from her?”
I pretend to think about this, even though I’ve thought about it a lot. “I want her to feel sorry for how she treats me.”
Ambrosia’s voice drops. There’s disappointment in it. “That’s it?”
“Okay, I want her to feel really, really”—she coaxes me forward with her hands, like I’m trying to ease a car into a tight parking space—“really, really sorry. I want an apology.”
Her body shudders like I blew it and hit the car behind me. “That’s it? Words? Only words? Is this a wrong that can be erased by a little apology? That’s all you think you deserve?”
“I want…”
Eager, a second chance for me to get it right. “Go on.”
“… to be treated the way she treats her cat.”
Ambrosia slams her hand on the top of her scrapbook. “Is that seriously the best you can do, Meg? An opportunity for a wrong to be righted, for justice to be done. And all you can come up with is begging to be treated like a cat?”
“You should see how she treats the cat! Like royalty.”
“Come on! Think big, Meg! You deserve it. What about some payback? Shouldn’t a leech be punished for the blood-sucking misery she’s caused you?”
“Well…” I open to other possibilities. “She should pay back some of the foster care money she’s been paid.” Ambrosia’s eyes go