With Mangoes And Chocolates | ✓

13. Would you?

I shut the door behind me and what awaited me was melodrama and exhaustion.

My mother looked at me and questioned me sharply as if she had all rights over my life. She didn't. "Where were you?" 
"Strolling."
"Two hours?"
"I ran into a girl. She's new here. Just the third street." I liked the fact that Bhavuk had a sister round my age. She was the perfect excuse and cover-up. "I lost track of the time."
"And what happens if something happens to you? Or you do something? I would be blamed."

I wondered if that was all she cared about. Her security and what people thought of her and the stupid societal status. 
"Oh, you cared that much? Didn't know."
She leaned against the kitchen counter. "You're my daughter."

"Last time I checked, no daughter generally gets called a bitch by her mother."
Her response was so nonchalant and matter-of-fact, it kinda shook me. "You get called one if you behave like one."

I picked up the water bottle kept beside her. I didn't like standing near her whenever we argued. I didn't like her demanding voice or her narcissistic expressions. "You behave like one all the time. I never called you one."

I shouldn't have said that. Not that I feared the consequences or whatsoever; it just felt sort of wrong. We may not get along but we were part of the same family. I didn't want to hurt her either. I almost uttered an apology but then she gripped my hair. Melodrama, like I said.

"You behave in my presence." I heard her say. Her narcissism got under my skin. Every. Time.

I jerked her hands away. "Don't you touch me."

My breath started to shake and my vision blurred. I ran up the stairs haphazardly before vulnerability could take over me. I made my way towards the bed and lied down. My body ached stupidly. 

Now all I needed was someone to kill me. Or perhaps the ceiling could fall off and crush me; even better.

I probably shouldn't have said shit downstairs. I was rude. Ungrateful. Immature, foolish. Oh, one more important adjective: Impulsive.

I wondered if I was too sickening and insufferable for my own mother to like me. I didn't want her to let me roam around with guys till midnight or do drugs. I didn't want her to not to correct me. I didn't want her to buy me expensive, glittering clothes and shove aside my academics.

All I ever asked for was appreciation. I wanted her to appreciate me when I first tried to bake a cake, and not point out the tiniest faults. I wanted her to support me and smile at me when I told her that I finished reading all seven books of Harry Potter, not criticize it. I wanted her to tell me that it was okay when I told her that I struggled to make friends. That no one liked me and that people found me too intolerable to ever include me in their conversation. I definitely didn't want her to jeer at me after that. It broke me apart and torn me into pieces so tiny, it was hard to gather all of them. I was nine back then and I still endeavored to do it.

I heard vibrations from somewhere and realized that it was my phone. It was dad calling me. Seriously, just kill me. I wouldn't even complain.

I answered it. "Yes."
"Manasvi," his voice informed me how disappointed and fed up he was. I was the cause, of course. "You really do upset me."
"She told you, didn't she?"
"Does it matter?"

I sighed but didn't speak. I was crying. I didn't want him to declare that I was playing the victim card.
"You've started to misbehave. You don't listen, you don't obey. You talk back. What am I supposed to do? I am tired of this."

"I didn't. ." I swallowed back a sob. "I only—"
"Stop lying."

I didn't reply so he continued. "This was not what I expected when I raised you."
I hummed.
"Where did I lack?"
I paused for a second. "Nowhere."