A Thousand Cuts (Underworld Kings)

The rich, snooty cheerleaders accepted me despite my trailer park upbringing. They accepted me because they liked having the trailer park girl as a friend, like it was some kind of fucking charity or something. They were also superficial, and I fit in with them. I’d gotten my mother’s looks. She was still beautiful, despite her life, because more often than not, her beauty was what got us fed, housed, clothed. I got her thick, blonde hair, tanned skin, blue eyes and delicate bone structure. Those looks worked with men because we looked small, helpless, like we needed someone to take care of us. My mom always needed someone to take care of her. Me, not so much.

My mother was desperate for me to look like I was one of them, the rich girls from school. So she trolled Goodwill and eBay for all the second-hand designer clothes. She mended them, washed them and gave them to me, smiling wide like a fucking puppy dog. I wore the clothes, complying because rebelling against it felt like too much of an effort, and because I didn’t want to fight my mother. I loved her. She was kind, funny and only wanted the best for me. She was all I’d ever had since my father ran off before I was born.

It wasn’t her fault she was unable to function without a man. That her life derailed when she got pregnant at fifteen. She’d never blamed me for that, not once. But she didn’t get a chance to mature, to understand herself. So in many ways, she stayed a teenager, constantly looking for a man to save her, to love her, to give her a ring and a white picket fence.

There were many men in and out of my childhood home. Mom made me call them all ‘Dad.’ It was odd, something I realized when I turned thirteen, and something that created a lot of issues with me surrounding men in my later years. But again, it was something that I didn’t rebel against. I was a dutiful daughter, mindful of my mother’s delicate state of mind and desperate to keep her happy, to make sure she didn’t lock herself in her bedroom and refuse to get out of bed for days as she did once in a while.

She was happier than I’d ever seen her with Joshua. He treated her well, had a steady job, contributed to the household and talked to me like he was really interested in what I was saying.

He was incredibly attractive too. Sandy blond hair. Azure blue eyes. Tanned from working in the sun. Muscled from that same work. The creases in his face only increased his handsomeness. There was always a rough sprinkling of stubble covering his angular chin, and his clothes were worn, soft, clinging to his muscles. Older than my mom by about almost ten years. Divorced. No kids. Mom had been murmuring about him not having kids yet. They’d been dating for a few months, and she was already naming the kids they’d have. She was already decorating the three-bedroom ranch we’d all move into after they married.

I was more realistic when it came to Mom’s boyfriends. And no matter how nice, steady and genuine Joshua was, I knew it wouldn’t last. Because I saw the way he’d been looking at me lately. The fact his eyes lingered on my legs when I was on the sofa watching TV. How he ran a finger down my arm when mom was in the kitchen, how his knees brushed against mine when we were all eating dinner.

He wasn’t forcing me to do anything. Not in a sleazy, disgusting way like a couple of mom’s boyfriends had tried to do. He was making it known that he liked me. That he thought I was attractive. That he wanted me. And he was giving me the opportunity to reject him in the same subtle way that he was coming on to me. I could’ve moved my knee from his at the dinner table. I could’ve flinched away from his touch when he brushed at my hair. Could’ve sat up straight on the sofa and glared at him, shaming him for leering at an underage girl. His girlfriend’s underage daughter.

I was a strong person, unafraid of authority and certainly unafraid of men. I was aware of the dangers they posed but also knew that the weaker I came across, the more dangerous they were. The last boyfriend earned a punch in the face for putting his hand on my thigh.

With Joshua, it was different.

I knocked my legs against his while my mother was eating dinner beside me. I leaned into his hand as he brushed my hair from my face. And, when I saw him watching me on the sofa, I opened my knees so he could see my white cotton panties. He’d rubbed his hand over his jaw when that happened, shifting in his chair, adjusting himself.