Chapter 5
Maia
Driving back to Brown’s campus, Jackson and I barely speak to each other. But it’s not really an awkward silence; at least not for me, anymore. He has this way of making me feel completely comfortable around him. No one in my life has ever made me feel this at ease by just being there. Still, the negativity that is such a destructive part of my personality gnaws away at my peaceful disposition. The thoughts that I try in earnest to keep at bay threaten to surface. Questions like why Jade, who has known Jackson for the longest time, would tell me to stay away from him? Questions like whether or not there was something going on with the two of them Or had there ever been? Questions like why he pulled away at the Bean. And I don’t know the answer to a single one of them. The logical part of me says that he chose to get my number instead of using the easy out I gave him in the dare, and he chose to hang out after I absconded at the library. So the logical part of me tells me to stop overthinking this. Like I do with everything. And for the first time in my life, I wish I could stop using all of the defense mechanisms that I have in my repertoire. I wish I could just let go.
“You okay?” Jackson’s voice startles me out of the court case I have going on in my head. He places a hand over mine and squeezes it gently. I turn my hand upwards into his and run my fingers along the callouses on his palm. I love that looking at him, his face is model perfect, yet his hands show how hardworking he is. Such a pleasant change from the Upper East Side brats. But, I’m one of those aren’t I?
“Fine,” I reply as I meet his eyes. He holds my gaze for a second or two, until he realizes that to drive, one must watch the road, and refocuses his eyes forward. He could have called me out with bullshit for a lot of what I said tonight. I just skimmed the surface of what and who I really am, and where I actually come from.
Jackson slows the car in front of my dorm building. When he stops, he turns to face me with a wicked grin. “So, why do I get the feeling we’re about to have a Cinderella moment here? You race out of my car, leaving behind a glass slipper?”
“Why would you say that??” I ask teasingly. He traces a line up my arm and his finger leaves behind a deliciously warm trail.
“Well, because it seems the closer I get to you, the more I get the sense that you are holding back.” He leans forward and delivers a line of soft kisses to my neck, stopping just shy of my mouth. “And I’d rather you didn’t hold back,” he murmurs.
My head falls back as his kisses send heat radiating from my neck straight down to my thighs. Holy hell, this boy is definitely skilled! He pulls away, and my first instinct is to grab him by the collar and bring him right back again. His eyes meet mine as he continues. “But just so you know, I really think you may be worth the wait. I’ll walk you up.”
A thin stream of light was filtering from under my dorm door, which means Jade is back. I glance down at my watch for the first time tonight as we climb the last stair to my floor and baulk at the time. “Shit! Do you realize it’s two in the morning?” I say to Jackson.
“What can I say, time flies when you’re having fun,” he answers cockily. When we arrive at my door, he presses me against the wall and delivers one last and long goodbye kiss, before he walks off. My body screams at my brain to stop him. I unlock the door, unable to wipe the stupid grin off my face. Nothing on this planet can destroy my euphoric mood. Nothing at all.
Nothing, that is, until I walk into my room to find my mother sitting on my bed. I discard my bag on the chest of drawers and turn to face her. “What are you doing here?” I deadpan.
“I tried calling you,” she answers, rising to walk towards me. My mother is classically beautiful in an Audrey Hepburn kind of way. Her almost black hair falls just past her shoulder blades, and we have the same brown eyes. Although when I look at hers, I see that they are red rimmed and she’s made no attempt to remedy the bags under them. That’s unlike her. She wears her signature uniform, an expensive charcoal pants suit with bone-colored Christian Louboutins. As always, she represents the picture of a perfect society wife.
“I saw. I was going to call you tomorrow.” I lie, in part because though I know it was always my intention to call her back, I know I probably wouldn’t have actually done it.
“I need your help,” she looks up at me, tears welling in her eyes. “I need to leave, and I need your help.”
The desperation in her voice saddens me. But not for the reasons it should. In the last few years of high school, my mother had planned to leave my father at least twenty times. Each time, she was as determined as she is now, and each time she stayed. I sympathized the first ten times, but I gave up eventually, although she never did. Once I told her that we should just leave, just walk out the door and not come back. She told me that a father should never be denied the opportunity to say goodbye to his child. So she marched into his office and told him we were leaving. He asked her how an uneducated woman like her would support herself and a child. Told her that she had no hope in the real world, because useless women rarely did. Told her he brought her from the bottom to where she was now, and if she fucked with him, he would make sure that’s where she wound up again. She yelled that she didn’t care anymore. And to my utter shock, she stormed out of the door, pulling me with her. We left without a stitch of clothing and went to the Bronx to stay with Aunt Megs, mum’s best friend from high school.
By the time morning came, my father had suspended my tuition at St Bernadette’s, the private high school that I attended, frozen all of her accounts and credit cards, and changed the locks to our apartment. Aunt Megs tried to tell her that she didn’t need any of that. She cried for hours before borrowing what little money Megs had to catch a cab back to our apartment with me in tow, again. My father made us stand in the hallway, knocking for half an hour before he opened the door. He reeked of scotch, and before we could walk in he grabbed my mother by the hair, pulling her in and slamming the door behind us. He screamed that she was shit, and that he knew she’d come crawling back. Asked her why he should bother letting her back there when there were a dozen women lined up to take her place? That a man like him could have the world if he wanted it. He asked her if she was prepared to be a good f-ucking wife and do as she was told from now on. She nodded in fearful submission, tears streaming down her face. He pulled her up the stairs by her hair and slammed the bedroom door behind them. By the following morning, my father had restored my place at St Bernadette’s. I went to school and blocked the events of the last few days from my memory.
Until she reminded me of why I ran away to Brown in the first place. Why I threw every check in the drawer and never cashed them. Why I refused to believe that any man on this earth would be nice to a woman if they didn’t want something in return.
“Why now, what’s different this time?” I ask bored, grateful that Jade is not here to witness the train wreck that is my family.
“This time I have to.” She looks up at me with sheer determination in her eyes, and for a moment I wonder if she may be serious. “I’m going to stay with Megs, she’s already agreed,” she continues. “All those other times I stayed for you, but you’re safe now, and I can finally leave for good.” She looks so overjoyed that her face appears almost manic.
Another memory flashes back. One of my mother asking my father to come to watch my ballet recital when I was seven. I stood in the hallway and listened to him tell her that she was the one who wanted a child, that it wasn’t in his plans. And to be grateful that he even allowed it. That’s all I was, a liability to him, and that he was far too busy making money to spend two hours in some f-ucking amateur concert. She came alone after that to every recital, every t-ball game, and never asked him again.
Megs is probably somewhere in the Bronx rolling her eyes, preparing for the house guest that is my mother to stay for a day again before racing back to our Central Park apartment. Just as I am while listening to her in Providence. I really want to believe her, but history is a motherfucker. The past almost always repeats itself.
Although I can’t bring myself to believe her entirely, I walk over to my bedside drawer and take out my second bankcard and hand it to her. Maybe if I make sure that she has money, he’ll have nothing to hold over her anymore, and she may just conclude that she doesn’t need to go back. She takes the card gratefully and wraps her arms around my neck, embracing me in a tight hug. As her daughter, I should hug her back; tell her that she’s going to be fine. But the most I can manage is placing my hands awkwardly on her back. I should tell her that I can take care of her, since my six figure trust fund from my grandparents landed in my account when I turned nineteen, and that I promise to keep her safe. But I don’t, because I can’t. How can I honestly commit to saving the soul of someone else when I can’t even f-ucking save my own?
My father hated me all the more for the fact that my grandparents left him the company, but left me everything else. In their professional years, they had amassed a sizeable fortune: stocks, shares, and properties. I suspect that they had an inkling of the kind of f-ucking asshole that their son was, and wanted to make sure that I would never have to beg him for anything. And, adding insult to injury, they named their long time and family lawyer trustee to the funds until I was of age. My father was never even given the option of seeing that money. He put forward a number of appeals, stating that as my legal guardian, he should be nominated trustee. The will was iron clad. He failed in all of his attempts. And now, well, now with some well placed investments, my net worth almost matches his. I considered that to be a spectacular f-uck you very much.
“Don’t you want to know why I’m leaving?” she asks me, pulling back.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say with a sad smile. “I’m just happy you are.” And I mean it, I really do.
I call her a cab to take her to Megs’ house and return to my room, kicking off my flats and collapsing onto my bed. The memory of my blissful evening with Jackson seems so distant now. Like a vivid and extremely hot dream that ended before I awoke to harsh reality. I don’t ever remember my father laying a hand on me; he saved his anger for my mother. Then again, it would be miraculous if he ever noticed that I was actually alive. The only time I was privy to slight displays of affection or kind words was the handful of times when it was necessary to maintain our social standing. At my cotillion, my graduation where I was named valedictorian of my class, and at that party afterwards where he present me with the keys to a BMW X5 with about a hundred of his colleagues, my friends and their country club parents watching. But such is the life of the rich upper class of Manhattan. I wasn’t different to my friends. Half their parents were having affairs, some mothers would even endure an occasional beating to save the peace in the house, and they all presented a public persona and hid their real lives behind very expensive closed doors.
I close my eyes and pray to God that I sleep soon, and pray even harder that some divine force will stave off the dreams that I know will haunt me. No matter which way you look at it, I’m fucked up, and Jackson deserves better. I bet if he knew me and what getting involved with me really meant, he’d bolt in the opposite direction, immediately. I’m tired of being hurt. Simple solution, I’ll just have to stay the hell away from him until he finds a girl that deserves him. I’ll talk to him in the morning and tell him not to waste his time.