Want a Kiss I'll Give You a Punch

Chapter 24: The Final One

Dane

To see Mike and Ashlyn getting along was relieving. Both seemed to be exhausted- like they had gotten back from running a marathon, but the moment they got into the car they were laughing and having a good time.

Like the little kids they were, they started a food fight in the back of the car with the remaining fries that Ashlyn had, which was making a huge mess. Usually it would bother me, since I'm the type of person who wants everything clean and neat, but I didn't bother to stop them today.

Yeah, I was smiling and laughing along, but I was wanting to die in the inside- not because of the car being a mess.

Before I picked up Mike and Ashlyn, I had another meeting with my mother, except this meeting was far more different than the ones in the past.

We weren't scheming, plotting, or planning anymore. We were acting on it- tonight.

The thought of the plan made me clench my fingers so tightly around the steering wheel that my knuckles were popping out and turning white.

I wasn't ready for this day- not one bit. Probably because I never thought this day would never happen, but what was I thinking?

Someday or another, something was going to happen and that it was either going to be Mike finding out what I was really doing or me and my mother doing something to hurt Mike. I couldn't fathom or wrap my brain around how I thought that I could get away with how things were like now for forever- keeping Mike safe while plotting plots with my mother that will never work.

I know I shouldn't be saying this about my mother, but I just thought that she was the crazed lunatic on her own, using amateur and mediocre like tactics to gain revenge.

However, Mike was apparently not the only one in the dark about all her twisted schemes and sick ideas. I was too.

My hands were on the wheel, but I just wanted to stop driving and pull at my hair and head as hard as I could to stop my brain from rewinding all the events that happened today- all the secrets that I didn't know. All the secrets that she kept from me- her only son.

I felt betrayed, and my heart stung in all the places that my mother stabbed me over and over again.

How could she do this to anyone: me, Mike, and herself? Can't she see what she's doing to me? I'm tearing apart at the seams before her very eyes over something that she wants me to have but I don't.

She says this was all for me and that she wanted me to have the life that she never had but bullshit. She was only doing this for her, so that she could finally live her life the way she wanted to.

Involuntarily, my brain retreated back into the vicious cycle of memories I futilely tried to prevent, and I found myself again at the front porch of my mother's house- awaiting the possible bad news but embracing the hope for it's failure.

Slightly opening the door wide enough so I could slip in, my mother pointed at the couch- ordering me to sit without saying a word.

Even though I didn't dare look at her, I could feel her icy blue cold stare dig itself into my back and follow me to the couch by the fireplace. This was how things usually went. There were never any hello's or goodbye's- it was purely strict business. The icy stares were never a part of the greeting sequence- the absent minded 'couldn't-care-less-about-you-Dane' ones were, but this week they were a lot more frequent. Probably since I have become more adamant with preventing my mother's plan and finding other peaceful ways with how I could deal with Mike.

As I sat down, I finally managed to look at her- what was left of her that was. All I could see was a half-flesh corpse being feasted upon by a flurry of revenge pecking away at her bones.