Black Knight (Royal Elite 4)

With this, here’s to hoping she won’t come out for at least another week.

And yes, my mum looks like a model when she’s painting, while I resemble a wannabe beggar in my best days.

“Stop.”

My feet come to a slow halt.

“Turn around.” Her tone is steel-like, callous and merciless, like a general speaking to his underling, not a mother to her only daughter.

Wincing, I face her.

“How much do you weigh?”

A lump balls at the back of my throat and I fiddle with the long sleeve of my pullover. “Sixty-three.”

“Sixty-three?” Her question, although lowly spoken, couldn’t have been any more brutal on my mind. “Are you even still on the diet?”

“Of course, Mum.”

“If you were, you would have lost three more kilos by now.” She motions at me with a finger. “Come here.”

“But Kir –”

“Come. Here.”

I’m reduced to a small child, the one who lost her nana and cried at her grave all day, begging her to come back, to not leave her with this mother, because she hated her, because she didn’t want to live with her.

As soon as I’m within reach, Mum motions at the scale she has near the dinner table. She has planted those all over the house during all these years. Dad told her to get rid of them, and he actively throws them away when he comes home, but there’s nothing we can do when he isn’t around.

“Get on it.”

“Mum…”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Kimberly.” Her voice is like a scolding teacher, biting and meant to be obeyed.

The fog surrounds me, thickening and magnifying as I step on the scale. People’s hearts thunder when they’re waiting for an exam result, when they have a crush. Mine nearly beats out of its place as the electronic numbers of my weight filter in front of me. The thing that defines me as a person in Mum’s eyes are those numbers and nothing else.

Sixty-four kilos.

I nearly stop breathing. Shit, what did I do wrong? I ate nothing, or at least nothing I couldn’t vomit back up. Was it that diet cola?

“Didn’t you say it was sixty-three?”

“It was this morning.” I slowly step down, as if the disappearance of those numbers will save me from the lashing of my mother’s tongue.

“I expect you to be sixty by the end of the week and fifty-seven by the end of next week.”

“But –”

“No buts, Kimberly.” She taps her Louboutin heels on the ground. “I’ve been patient with you, but you’re not watching your weight. You’re not even tall, so you can’t afford the extra kilos. I expect results or else Kir will go to that boarding school.”

“N-no, Mum. You promised!” It’s as if someone took my heart and pierced it open with sharp knives.

The fact she could and would send Kirian away to have more space for her art as soon as I’m in college has always given me nightmares.

I won’t allow her to ruin his childhood like she destroyed mine.

“Only if you keep your promise.” She flips her hair as she ascends the stairs.