Her Perfect Gift

“Oh, right okay.” I don’t like this. Poor Darcy looks freaked. “Sounds good…”

I don’t want her to feel like I’m pulling away from her again, so I try to reassure her with my actions. I pull her lips to mine and kiss her some more, massaging her tongue with mine, pressing my body up against hers to reassure her that I’m here for her no matter what. If she doesn’t leave with me then I don’t know if I can go. Much as I want this, I can’t give up on this romance now. It’s all I have ever wanted and if I walk away from it, I will always be wondering ‘what if?’. I am not going to live with that regret.

“What the hell is going on?” As the shrill scream rockets through the house, me and Darcy leap apart as if we have been burned or electrocuted. “What the hell are you kissing him for? I warned you against him, Darcy. I told you that he was an idiot. A player who is just going to screw you around like he does everyone else.”

Darcy spins around to look at her horrified mother in shock, leaving me almost alone while the attacks come my way. I don’t want to feel stung by the nasty words that she is spewing, I have heard worse, but for some reason these ones hurt a lot more than anything else that has come my way.

“Why would you be so stupid?” Mrs. McNeill continues. “Darcy, I can’t believe it. I told you that I don’t recognize you anymore and that is even more true today. You are an embarrassment. Acting like that in front of my house like it’s acceptable, with him… it’s disgusting.”

Wow, all the good vibes that I had only a moment ago have long gone. This isn’t good, is it? I have a feeling that this argument is only just beginning…

Chapter Sixteen

Darcy

December 28th

“Mom, my God, will you stop it?” I demand with tears filling my eyes. I must be red from the tips of my toes all the way up to my head because this is so utterly humiliating. “Don’t say things like that about Seth.”

“You think that I’m just going to stand back and watch while you make an idiot out of yourself?” she sneers, refusing to back down. “No way. I know that you must be lonely because you’re a sad twenty six year old who still lives with her parents and has no sign of any real romance in the future, but that doesn’t mean that you should be fooled by someone who definitely doesn’t want you. I mean, how can he? You are here, aren’t you? Any minute now he will be back in Hollywood and you’ll be crying over him again.”

Wow. I feel like Mom has smacked me in the face. She doesn’t even know about how heartbroken I was over Seth before, I never allowed her to see much of it, but it seems like she saw enough to throw it back in my face anyway. She has been crazy before, but never as bitchy as this. I don’t know how to take it. I’m so shocked that she has me in silence.

“I am not that person,” Seth tries to insist, but I can already tell that these words are going to fall on deaf ears. “I really don’t know why you are just believing what you read about me when you know me. You have known me for a lot of my life, and you know that these judgements aren’t real. I’m not that person.”

“Don’t speak to me.” My mother decides to humiliate me further. “I don’t know you. I never have.”

“Mom, stop it!” Now my face is wet with tears, I don’t quite know when that happened. “Don’t do this. Stop treating me like I’m a child and like Seth is a bad person. He isn’t, you don’t know him.”

“You are an idiot.” Mom misreads everything that I am saying, and she continues on with her rant to belittle me. My fight or flight instincts have kicked in and all I want to do is run away. “I didn’t raise you to be an idiot, so I don’t know what you’re doing here. It’s confusing. I don’t want to look at you.”

“Then don’t.” I want to say these words all strong and powerfully, but they come out a little whimpering and sob like instead. “Don’t look at me anymore. Don’t look at me ever again. I am going.”

I expect her to yell after me as I stalk off, but she doesn’t. My mother seems happy to let me go which is utterly heartbreaking. How can she just leave it like this? Isn’t she supposed to love me no matter what? But it seems like with Seth it isn’t just her being protective but instead she’s pushing me right away.

“Come on.” In a heartbeat, Seth is by my side, his arm slung around my shoulder to care for me. At least he is here with me. My mother might be shoving me away, but he wants to stick with me, which just proves that everything my mother is saying to me is wrong. He isn

’t a bad person. “Let’s go.”

This is much too serious for us to climb through the bedroom window, so we go in through Seth’s front door. I’m sure that his father is home but thankfully we don’t come across him. I like him but I’m not in the mood to see another parent right now. I don’t have the emotional strength to keep up a mask of happiness because I feel broken. It’s like my mother has just shattered me, and there is no coming back from it.

Once inside of Seth’s bedroom, I fall on to the bed and nestle myself in the sheets. As they wrap around me, I realize that this bed feels more like home than my own. In this bedroom I can be more myself, which is sad. I should be more comfortable in my own house. It’s sad that I’m not.

“Sorry. Seth,” I murmur into the pillow. “That was really shitty. I can’t believe she spoke to you like that.” I hear him telling me that it’s okay, but I don’t let it sink in because it really isn’t. I spin around to look at him desperately. “She has always treated me like a child, but that was something else. I mean, why would she do that to you? Be such a disrespectful bitch. It’s hurtful and it pisses me off. I would never speak about someone else like that.” I’m on a roll and I can’t stop. “It’s bad enough that she embarrasses me like that, but to go after you is unforgivable. And then to let me walk away without even caring… I don’t know if I can go back there, Seth. I don’t think that I can live in that house anymore. I have been telling myself that I need to move out for a long time, but I haven’t done anything about it… there have always been excuses. But now, I can’t put it off. I can’t really follow my dreams and become who I want to be while I live with them, they’re suffocating me.”

I don’t know if I’m making any sense, I feel like I’m just going on and on. But there are so many feelings that I need to get out and I know that Seth will listen to whatever the hell I have to say. I twist my head to look at him slightly but when I see pain in his face, I turn away from him again. I don’t want to hurt him, I don’t want my family to be a source of his pain, it isn’t right. I don’t want to give up on us, but I don’t want to be too much for him either. He has enough going on, without me adding messes for him to try and clear up.

“Darcy, this might be a crazy thought, and please stop me if it is.” I push myself up into a sitting position and stare at him as he says these slightly manic words. “But why don’t you come to LA with me when I go back?”

“Huh?” Of all the things that I was expecting him to say, this wasn’t it. “LA?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs one shoulder. “I mean, why not? If you’re going to move out, then why not move all the way out, and come to Hollywood with me? You wouldn’t need to worry about the finances of living alone because I already have a place. A massive house just dying for you to move in.”

“You can’t…” I gasp out while I shake my head fearfully. “What are you talking about? I can’t…”

I clutch my chest hard, as my heart starts pounding. I don’t know if he even understands what he’s talking about. This is too wild, too rash, too much for today. Just because my mom has been crazy, doesn’t mean that we all have to be that way. We can talk about this, think about it, be rational and calm…

“Why not, Darcy?” He has the biggest smile on his face possible. “Why not? This isn’t a new relationship, is it? I mean, sure romantically, it is, but we know each other, inside and out. We have been friends forever, and we know everything about one another. There aren’t any secrets to come out. We practically lived together when we were younger anyway, so that isn’t going to be a shock. Plus… and most importantly.” He reaches out and grabs my hands while beaming like a freaking lightbulb. “We’re in love. It makes perfect sense.”