Until Lexi

Her pretty little eyes light right the fuck up.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Can they be rainbow, too?”

“They can be whatever color you want,” Penny tells her.

“Spoiled fucking brat.”

We all go still.

Hope may have muttered the words under her breath, but we all fucking heard them.

Even Mercy.

It’s heartbreaking, watching the way her brightness dims.

Her little shoulders slump, and she lowers her gaze, but I don’t miss the tears rolling silently down her cheeks. None of us do.

Shooting a scathing glare at Hope, Penny quickly ushers Mercy away from the table. As soon as they’re out of earshot, Riley blows.

“What the fuck is wrong with you, Hope?”

Her voice is a low, hissed whisper. She’s pissed, but she’s still conscious of the fact that we’re in a busy restaurant.

Hope doesn’t answer the question. She rolls her goddamn eyes and crosses her arms over her chest.

For once in my life, I’m totally speechless.

I know she doesn’t have motherly feelings toward Mercy, but her comment was completely uncalled for. Hope’s trauma has changed her to someone I don’t even recognize anymore. The Hope I knew would never be so cruel as to break a little girl’s spirit.

Riley is visibly vibrating with anger, and I don’t blame her. Hope has gone too far. Thankfully, Riley’s able to find the words I can’t.

“Fine. Don’t answer me, but you’re damn well gonna listen to what I have to say.” Riley leans in across the table, ensuring that Hope hears every word that’s about to come out of her mouth. “You experienced something truly atrocious, and because of it, you had to make harder decisions than any of us can possibly comprehend, but that doesn’t give you the right to take your shit out on everyone else. You may not have wanted to be a mother to Mercy, but that doesn’t mean you get to treat her as less than.

“I won’t pretend to understand what goes on in that fucked-up head of yours, but you crossed a line. We’ve tried to be understanding. We know you’re dealing with something that we clearly don’t understand, but enough is enough. You wanna wallow in it? Be fucking miserable? Fine. If you want to let your demons completely destroy you, that’s your prerogative. But what you’re not gonna do… is keep treating Mercy the way you do. You bounce back and forth between pretending she doesn’t exist and being downright rude to her. You can’t keep blaming her, Hope. It’s not her fault. She’s the truly innocent one in all of this. She didn’t ask to be born any more than you asked that motherfucker to violate you. I won’t stand by and let you tear her down. I refuse to let Mercy be a casualty in your war with yourself.”

Hope’s eyes burn with fury, but still, she doesn’t speak a word.

The raw protectiveness emanating from Riley helps me find my voice.

“Riley’s right, Hope. Mercy is the one bright light in our fucked-up lives. She’s an amazing little girl, and maybe you can’t see that because she reminds you of something horrible that happened to you, but I’ll be damned if I let you dull her shine because you refuse to try. At some point… you’re gonna have to face your past and get some help for the shit you’re dealing with instead of burying your head in the sand. I love you like a sister, Hope, and I’m realizing we’ve done a disservice to you by letting this shit go on for so long, but I’m done. I can’t carry your burden, and I won’t let you take it out on Mercy either.”

“I’m her mother, Lexi. I can do whatever the hell I want.”

“Penny has adoption papers that say otherwise,” Riley says, dealing the final blow.

Hope pushes back from the table, her chair almost tipping as she stands. Emotions completely shuttered, she looks back and forth between me and Riley with a blank face. Then, without a word, she turns and stalks off through the restaurant and out the door.

Riley releases a heavy breath as her shoulders sag.

“That was…”

“I know,” I agree, looking toward the restrooms for any sign of Penny and Mercy.

“I might have gone too far, but she needed to hear it, Lex.”

“You don’t have to defend yourself to me, Riley. I get it. We’ve all been walking on glass around her for weeks—”

“Months.” She sighs. “It’s been months, if not years.”

“True. It’s only been a couple weeks of knowing why, but… even knowing doesn’t make it right.”

“We all have shit in our past that fucks with us. I’d argue that some of us have been through worse, but we’re not sitting around letting it eat us alive. She’s hopeless.”

“I don’t know what to do anymore,” I admit.

“That makes two of us.”

Deep down, neither of us wanted that confrontation to happen, but I think it was inevitable. Maybe we should have waited until tension wasn’t running so high and we could see through our anger, but it’s too late now. We didn’t say anything that the other wasn’t already thinking. Even if she didn’t show it, our words hurt Hope, and I hate that. But what else were we supposed to do?

“I’m gonna request an Uber and head home,” she says, pulling out her phone.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, I really do. I can’t be cooped up in a car with her or I might wring her skinny fucking neck.”

Sighing, I notice Penny and Mercy on the way back to the table. Penny’s brows furrow when she notices Hope is no longer at the table with us. I’ll tell her what went down later, but I refuse to drag anymore of this shit out in front of Mercy.

“I’ll pay for lunch,” Riley says, pocketing her phone, “and when my ride gets here, I’ll take all the bags with me, so you don’t have to carry them all the way back to the car.”

“I think we’re going to skip the salon anyway. I doubt anyone’s much in the mood for a manicure after that scene.”

“Then I’ll see you at home.”