Her Perfect Gift

“He cheated on you, am I right?” she continues, talking over me and completely ignoring my words. “With that girl that he has been filming a movie with. Just as I told you he would because that’s the sort of man that he is. And now you are heart broken and he has moved on to the next. Just as I told you he would. If only you could be bothered to listen to me, you would have saved yourself all of this humiliation and shame.”

“Mom, I don’t want to argue about this,” I plead, too tired and emotional to have her feelings in the mix. “Can I just go to bed tonight and then we will talk about this in the morning? I need some rest. I will listen to anything that you have to say then. Even if it is just to say, ‘I told you so’ over and over again.”

As soon as those words leave my mouth, I know that they were a mistake to say. My mother’s face glowers and her whole expression turns a blackened shade of rage. I take an automatic step backwards to try and escape the volcanic eruption that I just know will spill all over me, but I can’t avoid it. I don’t stand a chance.

“I am telling you that I told you so, because I did,” she snaps, venom lacing her tongue. “Because that boy is an idiot and was never going to treat you right. I wanted to tell you what was best for you, but you ran away like a teenager with a pathetic little crush, acting nothing like the adult you are supposed to be, and now look at you.” She runs her eyes up and down me, clearly disgusted by what she sees which immediately makes me shrink in on myself. I want to hide away from the world. “You have put yourself out there in the public eye, make yourself a figure of ridicule, and all for nothing. Now, you will never have a business of your own because you have made yourself a joke. You look like a pathetic groupie who thought that she could get lucky.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I whisper at the same moment my father snaps at her for being cruel to me. But I already know that it won’t make any difference. She has been vindicated, and I have been proven wrong. She is going to swim in this for a very long time to come. There is no escaping the pain coming my way.

Coming back home wasn’t a good idea. I don’t fit in here just like I don’t in LA. God, do I have anywhere in the world that I can make my own? It’s starting to feel like I will always be on the outside.

“What exactly do you think will happen now?” Just as I suspected, Mom keeps berating me. “Huh? Have you come back with a plan, Darcy? Because you can’t just mope around and do nothing anymore.”

“I’m not going to do nothing,” I mumble pathetically. “I just need to sleep before I can plan.”

“And who the hell says that you are still welcome here?” Mom’s hands fling on to her hips as she shows me that she means business now. “You can’t just come back like that, it isn’t right.”

I’m a pressure cooker, each word of hers filling me up more until I can’t take it anymore. There isn’t any room left inside of me. I’m on the edge of things, on the tip of the knife, and I can’t hold it in. I just need her to understand that this isn’t the mess she assumes, there is so much more to it, and now more

than ever I really need her to push all of her feelings about my behavior to one side to just be my mother for a change.

“Mom, I’m pregnant,” I blurt out while throwing my hands in to the air in frustration. “I’m having a baby, and everything is a mess, so please… all I want to do is sleep. I can’t deal with any of this.”

“A baby?” My mom gasps in horror as I watch all of the color drain from my father again. That poor man is really struggling right now. “You are having a child, with him? How stupid can you be?” Oh, so I guess my want for some sympathy right now isn’t going to lead me anywhere. “How idiotic are you? You do know about birth control, don’t you? Protection from babies and diseases. A man like that… who knows what he has.” She visibly shudders. “No, I’m sorry I can’t have this, Darcy. I can not have you in my house with God knows what and that idiot’s baby inside of you. You are an adult now and you need to get the hell out.”

“You’re kicking me out?” Despite everything I am still surprised by this. “Really? Now? When I need you more than ever? This isn’t just a baby, Mom, this is your grandchild…”

“No family member of mine is conceived out of wed lock.”

“Are you joking? Mom, please, just let me stay tonight and then I will get out of your hair…”

“No.” She folds her arms across her chest, completely ignoring my father’s pleas for her to be a bit more reasonable. “You need to go, Darcy. I can’t have this. You think that you are the only person with problems, that this only affects you, but you’re wrong. This gets to me as well, and it kills me. You are humiliating me every single day. I just need you gone. If you are enough of an adult to let this happen, then you can stand on your own two feet and fix it, because my support for you is done.”

I don’t know if I have ever had her support really. Certainly not when I do something that isn’t what she has commanded of me, but this is the lowest that she has ever sank. This is the first time that I have ever felt her turn her back on me for good. And it hurts. God damn does it hurt more than I knew it could.

But I can’t fight it. I don’t have the strength to battle with this anymore, I am done. I just want to sleep. I’m simply lucky that I have one person here who I know that I can trust to be there for me even when everyone else in the whole world has turned their back on me. My best friend, Ivy, who doesn’t even know that I’m back yet. The one who told me to fight for love, to make it work, but even though it didn’t work out, she won’t judge me like my mother does. She will help me through this shitty time, until my life is back on track… if that’s possible.

Chapter Thirty-One

Seth

January 22nd

Oh my God, heading to a bar as soon as I left my mother to try and block out the terrible things that happened with her, was a mistake. I don’t remember much after the fifth drink, but I can tell from the pounding headache and the intense sickness swirling through my system, that I stayed out late and drank far too much. I’m pretty sure I even tumbled to the ground at some point in my sorry ass state, because I’m covered in scrapes.

“What the fuck?” I murmur as I try to block out the pain. “Why am I such an idiot?”

The thing is I still feel all emotional and shitty after meeting my mother and learning that even now, even after all of these years she only wanted money from me. If I wasn’t the movie star that I have made myself, she wouldn’t have bothered to talk to me ever again. That’s horrible, isn’t it? I am not worth anything but cash. I can’t believe it. I mean, I didn’t get the hippy chick that my father fell in love with, she’s something else entirely.

“Darcy?” I didn’t get a chance to speak to her last night. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, but now I need to tell her everything. I need to get the opinion of someone who really knows me. “Darcy, where are you?”

I pat the bed next to me but the area where she should be sleeping is cold and empty. If only I could remember coming home last night, then I would know if she was beside me then. I shouldn’t drink anymore. I don’t know why I have fallen so hard into the pit of booze recently. It isn’t good for me at all.

“Darcy?” I call a little louder. “Darcy, where are you? Are you downstairs?”

I need to push myself up from the bed, clutching on to my stomach to try and stop myself from puking. I can just imagine her lying on the couch because I was too much for her last night. I’d rather that than her not be here at all. I need her more than ever before. But as I stagger down the stairs, there is too much silence for my liking. I can’t hear anything, not even the sound of breathing which has me panicked.

“Darcy!” I yell loudly. “Darcy, where are you? Why aren’t you here? I need to talk to you…”