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Chapter 39: Cale

"Cale, honey! Come here." I hear my mother call from the living room.

I cautiously walk up to her to see her on the sofa watching baby videos of me. I can't even describe the horror on my face as I see them. Why is she watching that?

I feel anger well up in me until I don't anymore as I look at how she handles me with care and can't help but smile and laugh as she bathes me. I almost feel a sense of nostalgia, of longing for this woman who was my "mom" and not the person before me, sitting on the couch. That feeling, that I wish she actually treated me in the matter a mother should... I want it back. I want it to empower me, to make me grow. But it's too late. Too late for change. My hatred for her is far too great already. It no longer can be suppressed by foolish desires that she change.

For years on end, I hoped that she would. That she would stop touching me in a manner that she shouldn't. That she would return to the caring mother she used to be, as seen in this video.

Then it hits me.

"Who's holding the camera?" I ask softly, almost too shocked to speak.

For a second I think she didn't hear me but then she answers.

"Your father." She replies.

"What do you mean? Didn't you tell me he left after he knew you were pregnant?"

She remains silent and I feel that suppressed anger well up in me all over again, and with much more intensity.

"Why is he the one holding the camera if he left before I was born?!" I urge forcefully. "Why is it that he's the one holding the camera if you said that he left?!"

"Because I lied."

I want to get angrier but I just can't find a reason to. It's a waste of time and energy. I already hate this woman. There's no way I can hate her more anyways. There's no reason for me to even care anymore. After all, as I realized when I was 12, there's no use, no point. I tried. I tried really hard to make her accept me. I thought if I continued she would love.

I thought if I stopped she would hate me.

I thought if I loved she would love me too.

"Why?" I utter in a broken voice. "Why?!" I yell.

"Because I didn't want you to hate me."

"I already hate you so there's no point anymore!" I shout. "You only used me for the pleasure anyways! To fill that void you had in you! To replace that emptiness!"

"He was with you often. Until you were about seven."

When she started drinking.

"He left. And not one of those times when he left for a couple days to go find some whores to play with. He left. Left for good."

I stay silent. I want to hear it. Her excuse at the end, her begging me for forgiveness, her desperate crying face as she falls to her knees for me not to hate her.

"I never wanted him around you. He was always there but I always thought he was a bad influence for you. He smoked weed, did drugs, had a lot of sex and in the end used me as a mere enjoyment whenever he was a little down."

"Like you used me."

She looks away, her face sullen as she contemplates the carpet at her feet.

"Then he decided, I wasn't good enough. I was too old for him, somehow, although I am younger than him. Yet, he still preferred that blonde bombshell down the road to me. When he left me for good, I couldn't bear it. I couldn't bear not having him coming over, even in his drunken state, because he gave attention and that was the attention I craved. I needed it. I became dependent of him. And he just left."

I would feel sorry for her if I weren't me, but I am, and I don't. She doesn't deserve redemption after everything she's done to me, even if she didn't have it easy. It doesn't make it okay for her to do that.

"Then there was you: the bright golden boy that couldn't help but love me more than anyone else could. You cared about me. You comforted me. It helped rebuild me. But... I couldn't help but see how much I wanted him to be like that with me... And... You looked so much like me. So I thought it would okay... Even if just a little bit, to see your flushed face and bring me back to the days when me and your father were kids and we loved each other."

"You're crazy." I whisper as I feel a pain in my entire body and yet I also feel that numbing sensation that seems to take over.

"When we were younger he told me he loved me, just like you did as you left to go to school. He told me I was pretty just like you did when I doubted myself. In the end... You were always there for me."

She gets up and I take a few steps back.

"The truth is, I never wanted it to stop; the pleasure I had with you, the way you still tried to love me, the way you were growing up and only looked more like him. I couldn't stop it and I wouldn't. Then one day, out of nowhere, he dropped by. It wasn't for long, he wanted to see you. I couldn't bear it. I had waited all this time, not you. And yet you were the one he wanted to see. It killed me. So... I enticed him, told you to go to sleep at Guy's house and had sex with your father again.

I didn't know I would get pregnant but I was so happy because I had another piece of him which was also mine. For a while I felt like a mother again, but you just kept on getting more and more handsome and stronger... And... I thought after Jack I would be able to stop myself but I couldn't. I thought after having Jack that it would stop my craving for you but I was already too far gone.

The truth is... I never wanted Jack. I wanted you and I felt the only way to do that was to threaten you. I would never touch Jack the same way I touched you but somehow in my mind it was okay if it was you, because in my mind you and your father were the same person, you were simply the better version, the upgrade.

Then you got a girlfriend, the first one you had, too. Daisy. This pretty, funny, young girl. I freaked out. You would leave me just like he did for a younger blonde girl. I couldn't let that happen, so I made things more intense so you wouldn't have the need to go to her, but you still did. You still did.

Then I had a plan."

I can feel my heart beating faster and faster as she looks straight into my eyes.

What is she going to say?

---

Hey guys!

So as you can see, today is a little bit more dark and sinister, this is Cale's past that I'm sure you've been dying to hear... So this will tie in with a lot that happens next or at least his knowledge of it will. Well there is more and it will be long which is why I am stopping the chapter here, I also wanted you guys to have a little break from Maya, but she will be coming back in the next chapter with the continuation of her conversation with Gigi.

*Note: don't think I support rape, abuse or incest, this is purely fiction and I know these things are a touchy subject but I also like talking about subjects like these because not a lot of people do.*

*tbh I'm just as disgusted as you might be but this needs to be addressed more because I bet cases like these must exist around the world.