One shot for Gemma's brother, passed away the week before due to traumatic brain injuries sustained as a result of an attack orchestrated by The Supplier, to which nobody at the prison would own up. One for fucking Will Barkley when you're supposed to be getting serious with Holly Khan. One for losing your job, and consequently your flat, along with your dissertation. One for Cleo's sister and the piece of shit that touched her where no person should be touched without asking. Another for Cleo, who probably got the same treatment. Lastly, one for why the fuck not? And maybe a few more.
After all those why nots, Clara was drunk. Very drunk. A dancing around her living room to Nelly Furtado with a bottle of vodka in one hand, and a cigarette in the other, in nothing but an oversized white t-shirt and lacy black underwear level of inebriation. She was almost pleased that her scandalised mother, Fiona, walked in on her semi slut-dropping; it was amusing, the plethora of bags of groceries she was holding slipping from her hands to the expensive, wood floor beneath the weatherbeaten mules she always insisted on wearing, much to Clara's disrelish. "God, you look like you're fucking Amish or something! Get some new shoes!" Clara would say, only for her mother to scold her for both her use of profanity and her materialism, in response.
"Clara, what on earth are you doing?" Fiona screeched. "Put some clothes on! If somebody saw through the window...you're embarrassing yourself!"
"I do this all the time back at my flat." Clara slurred defiantly, waltzing into the hallway and lifting her mum's chin up with her finger.
"Well you lost your flat when you carelessly lost your job so you're staying here now and in this house we are respectful! Temperance, Clara! Modesty, for Pete's sake!" Fiona scolded, gripping Clara's limp wrist and attempting to prise the bottle of vodka out of her hand. It was a lacklustre endeavour that allowed Clara to wrench her hand away and with an animalistic growl, chuck the bottle against the wall next to them, where it shattered on impact, the alcohol it contained dousing the wooden crucifix that hung above the dresser. "Look what you've done!" Her mother shrieked, as Clara giggled impishly. Walking slowly towards the sopping wall and dresser, winking at her mother over her shoulder, she then flicked the cigarette onto the crucifix. Within moments, it was taken over by jerking rust coloured flames. "Clara!"
"What, mother?"
"I thought with Cleo gone, this kind of behaviour would-"
"What doe Cleo have to do with any of this?" Clara roared as the smoke alarm began to blare, her mother shoving her out of the way and darting into the kitchen, only to return with a grimy tea towel; with this, she began to swat at the flames.
"She ruined this family! She corrupted you!"
"What the hell are you chatting about? She didn't have anything to do with dad leaving and she didn't corrupt me!" Clara yelled back, tongue imbued with the heat of the fire her mother was fervidly trying to quench. Life fucking corrupted you, she told herself. As soon as you were old enough to comprehend the inevitable shittiness of it all, and Cleo? She gave you an escape from the purposelessness left behind. That's your truth, and it needs to be your mother's too, since you are her bloody daughter and the last few months have taught you that there's a lot more to be afraid of in this world than her knowing that dick isn't the be all and end all.
Tell her.
"I fucking loved Cleo! I was in love with her!"
Apart from the flames, hissing like a cat about to attack, there was absolute silence. Her mum's mouth moved as if she intended for sound to come out of it, but nothing did.
"I wanted to fuck her all day long!" Clara continued hoarsely, breaking the noiselessness initiated by her floundering mother. "Does that make me a slut? You think there's something wrong with being a slut? You want to keeping nunning it up with your home-fucking-boy Jesus?" She snarled. "Fine. Write to me, mother darling. Tell me how fun it is. I bet not very much." Grabbing her phone from the dresser, Clara swerved around her mother and still, with just her top and underwear on, threw the front door open. "Because I'm not sticking around here. I'll go and live with my girlfriend, Holly, for the rest of the year. I don't want to have to put up with this anymore." She spat, stepping out of the house and onto the doorstep. "Pretending something that I know, that I feel in me so clearly does exist does not, for someone or something that obviously doesn't. Watch the fucking news, mum. It has all the proof you need. You shouldn't have to keep living a lie too."
YOU ARE READING
Trust No Bitch: Part 3
Mystery / ThrillerYou think you know the story: 4 women, a dead friend, and an anonymous texter. But think again. It's about to get a whole lot messier, as 4 British university students are about to find out. Full of sex, drugs, and deceit, you've come to the wrong...
