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Secrets and Lies

13: I Don’t Want a Motherfucking Part of You

Stella

I’m no sooner in my car and sticking the key into the ignition when my passenger door opens and Zack slides in. He doesn’t say anything but just stares at me with wide eyes.

“Zack, what are you doing?” I ask him, starting my car.

“I’m going with you,” he tells me.

I don’t reply. Instead, I press the gas and let out a small shriek as the car juts forward instead of backward. I look down and realize I had put the car into drive by mistake. “Shit,” I curse quietly, moving the gear into reverse.

As my hand moves away from the handle, Zack grips it. “Maybe I should drive,” he suggests.

I grip the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turn white. I don’t answer Zack, but I don’t release my foot off the break either. I sit there, fuming and focusing on the sting of betrayal in my chest. I don’t hear Zack as he gets out of the car, I don’t even realize he’s no longer sitting beside me until my driver’s door opens and he’s offering me his hand. I reluctantly take it after putting the car in park and climb out.

Zack and I don’t speak as he drives me to my parents’ house. I stare out the window, watching the houses pass by, the sidewalks I used to walk as a teenager, admire the town I could have stayed in and loved if only my parents didn’t manufacture this crazy lie.

We turn on the street my parents live in and I glance at Zack, silently wondering what he’s thinking – about me, about the situation. Does he feel as angry and betrayed as I do? If he does, does he partly blame me? Is he angry with me for keeping my true identity a secret after these last several weeks? If he is, his face doesn’t show it or any emotion. He focuses on the road in front of him and eventually, the driveway in front of him.

I’m out of the car before it comes to a complete stop. I seem to glide over the stretch of cement and grass before I reach the front door. I don’t knock or ring the doorbell but instead storm in.

There’s a new maid here and she looks completely flabbergasted as I march into the quiet house. “Excuse me,” she starts, but I ignore her, walking from room to room until I find my parents.

My mother is sitting on the couch with a teacup in one hand and large binder in her lap. My father sits in the chair next to her, his face hidden behind today’s L.A. Times. Neither one of them looks up at me.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask them loudly.

My mother nearly drops her cup but isn’t so lucky with her jaw as it falls to the floor. The newspaper my father is reading is ripped in half as he lowers it, looking completely shocked. “Nora! What…What do you – what happened to your face?”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I ask them again.

“Have you gone crazy?” My mother asks me.

I can’t find the words. I feel something crumpled in my hands I look down, realizing it’s still the letters to Zack. I throw it at them. My mother glares at me for a long moment before she reaches for paper. She studies it for a brief moment before scoffing, handing it to my father.

“Nora, what is this? You’re mad at us for what exactly?” She asks me.

You know that scene in Mean Girls when Lindsay Lohan’s character comes out of the office and the girls in the hallway are all fighting with random animal noises? I imagined myself jumping over the furniture, tackling my mother much like the scene of that movie, but in reality, I realize how I'm digging my nails into the palms of my hands.

“You fucking lied to me!” I wail.

“Language!” My father barks.

I ignore him. “You told me he left with your money! And all this fucking time…” I trail off. “You knew how much I loved him! You knew how hurt I was!”

My mother sighs, rolling her eyes. “Nora, I will not have this conversation with you. Esmerelda will show you out.”

“Oh, fuck that,” I tell her, glancing back at Esmerelda, silently daring her to touch me. She doesn’t look like she wants to touch me; as a matter of fact, she doesn’t look at me at all. “You and father are going to explain to me why you would do this. Why would you lie to me? Why would you tell me you offered him money? Why – why would you – why would forge these letters? You – you what, you went through my – my journal just looking for something bad about Zack?”

“We told you to stay away from him!” My mother says, standing up. “We moved you to Manhattan, so you would forget about him! But you just had to keep writing him.”

“What did you do with my letters?”

“Your grandmother had them thrown out, of course. Nora, we did it for you. We did it so you could build the life you were meant to have – ” My father explains, purple in the face.

“How? How did you do it? The first letter is a journal entry but the second one…I didn’t write that!”

My mother sighs again. “We met with a forger, Nora. We brought someone one of your diaries and they were able to forge us a letter. We paid good money for that letter, Nora and it was for the best! Look at the woman you became after you graduated and stayed in Manhattan! Look at the money and friends and the reputation you have now!”

“Are you serious?! Money? That’s what you’re making this about?” I run my hand through my hair angrily. “You realize Zack makes more money than you and Liam put together, right? And he has that money because he worked hard – not because of some trust fund! You know that ‘little band’ you thought was stupid and pointless? It blew up and now he’s fucking traveling the world and he’s loved and adored and – and God, he’s so fucking happy! And that could have been me! I could have been happy!”

“You’re being dramatic, Nora.” My mother snarls.

At the same time, my father replies, “You’re not happy? You’re not happy with the millions of dollars your grandmother left you? Or with the life you have with Liam in Manhattan? You haven’t had to do a single day of hard work in your life, Nora! You have everything you could have possibly dreamed of!”

“Oh, you want to talk about my life with Liam?” I ask. I’m so frustrated I’m shaking. I want to cry but I refuse to let myself. “He fucking hits me! He’s put me in the hospital multiple times and then always covers it up with hush money! All these fucking bruises you see are from him! The necklace of bruises is from him! He wrapped his hands around my throat and tried to kill me! That’s the type of guy you want me to have a life with? That’s the type of man you want me to marry?” My parents don’t answer me. A tear falls, landing on my cheek and I wipe it away quickly. “Of course, you do,” I continue, softer and more broken than my words before. “As long as he’s a trust fund kid from a prestigious Saint-Clair approved family, it doesn’t matter what he does to me. As long as I marry him and give him a child – it doesn’t matter how I feel towards him. You care more for your reputation, your family name than you do your own daughter. You always have.”

“We have given you a wonderful life,” my mother tells me stiffly.

I scoff. “Fuck you.”

An audible gasp escapes my mother’s lips. My father looks like steam is going to come out of his ears and nostrils at any second. “You will not speak to your mother that way! Do you understand me, Nora Saint-Clair?”

I shake my head. I can feel how weak my vocal chords are and know if I speak again, the words will come out shaky and cracked. I swallow, still holding the tears back and open my mouth, hoping the words come out strong. “Not Saint-Clair. Not anymore. You’re both fucking dead to me.”

My parents don’t reply as I turn on my heel and take large steps out of the room, mostly to get away from them but also because I know I can’t hold the tears back any longer. Esmerelda steps out of my way as I throw the door open. Zack is standing in the hallway, leaning against the wall. The look he gives me – a look of pity – makes me want to scream.

“Let’s go,” I mumble as I walk past him.

The sun feels warm against my skin when I step outside reminding me of how cold my parents can be. I can’t believe they lied to me – actually, I can believe they lied to me. I should have known something was wrong. I should have known Zack would have never chosen my parents’ money over me. I know that a part of this is my fault.

Zack doesn’t follow me out of the house, and I wonder if he heard me when I walked by him but can’t bring myself to go back inside the house. The car is locked, so I lean against it, letting the tears silently fall from my lashes. I want to go home but I realize I don’t have one of those anymore and hell, maybe I never did.

Zack finally comes out of the house. The look of pity is replaced with an angrier expression, but it softens the closer he gets to the car. “Nora…”

The soft, caring tone in his voice causes the tears to fall harder and I cover my face with my hands, sobbing into them. “I – can’t – be-believe – th-them!”

Zack pulls me into a hug, squeezing me tightly. Instinctively, I wrap my arms around him, crying into his shoulder. “I know,” Zack coos. “You really got the short end of the stick with parents but…I’m so proud of you for standing up to them.”

I don’t reply, I can’t. Zack and I just stand there for several minutes, mostly in silence as I sob into his t-shirt. I’m finally able to calm myself down and after another moment, I pull away from him.

“Let’s just go,” I tell him. “I don’t want to be here anymore.”

Zack nods. “Okay,” he says. He presses his lips to my forehead. “Let’s go home.”

Notes

Sorry for the delay you guys! I think thre's only going to be 2-3 more chapters left but I'm not sure yet!

thank you kimmie and overneaththepathofmisery for commenting!

Title credit: Three Days Grace “Right Left Wrong”

Comments

Ooh I just loved this! Gosh, it was so cute and that ending though!

C.H.Sullivan C.H.Sullivan
12/31/18

Awhhh the ending was so cute! I know you were struggling on how to continue a while back, but you did great!

I'm sad it's ended, but the ending was as it should have been :)

Kimmie Kimmie
12/8/18

*happy sigh*

I love happy endings

BeccaBearSc BeccaBearSc
12/2/18

AWWWWW their realtionship is too damn cute.

BeccaBearSc BeccaBearSc
11/5/18