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❝How do I... How do I stop them?"
"You want to stop them?" Rachel raised an eyebrow.
"Yes," I nodded.
She immediately broke out into a high-pitched laugh. "Oh Laura, you can't.❞
Every prestigious high school has this. A group...
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We been through some things yeah Thought I could restrain ya I don't wanna tame ya
♕
MY MOTHER AND FATHER were twinning. Wearing a matching white dress and white suit with flakes of gold every now and then. I could tell she wanted to say something about my fashion choice, the black dress that went in contrast with everything from their outfits to the decor picked for tonight's dinner. But they didn't comment on it. Instead, we sat in the living room of their new house, sorry, new mansion, and waited with a tense silence between us for the guests to show.
"They should be here soon," Mother said when the clock hit 6:23. "Be on your best behavior."
"You know I always am," I replied emotionlessly, but mother knew. After all, she'd be the one who taught me to hide my feelings, of course, she knew how annoyed and angry I was at the moment. That was one of the reasons she took my hand in hers.
After a couple of seconds, mother released my hand. "No pearls?"
"No pearls," I confirmed.
"No pearls," She repeated, the satisfaction in her voice clear. Mother hates pearls.
My father came into the room 2 minutes later, his fingers chipped. My father bites his fingernails, he says they keep him busy when he wasn't playing. He loved the piano, mother hated it. Thinking about it, I could never find something that both of them liked besides their obsession with controlling my life. Well, controlling is a strong word. They just liked planning out my entire life and not giving me a say in any of it.
"You should stop biting your nails, William," Mother said.
Father didn't reply, he never did. He rarely talked, I think that's one of the reasons they fell in love. Because Mother could speak to him, she liked speaking for other people.
At 6:29, the doorbell rang. We stood up all at once like it was rehearsed. I followed behind them to greet whoever was at the door. It's not like I knew. They had new friends every week. Mother opened the door and immediately her emotion flipped like a switch from irked and cautious to hospitable and warm. It was wrong. The people they let inside this time were dressed like it was a gala. The older woman with greying hair was wearing a blue long maxi dress, matching the husband's black and blue velvet suit. Next to them was the boy Mother told me about wearing a plain black suit. I liked it.
He looked completely different from the two adults in front of me. While they had blonde hair and blue and green eyes and pale skin, the boy himself had brown hair and brown eyes with tanned skin. The only thing pulling them together was the narrow eyes from the mother and rather pointed nose from the father. In simpler terms, the two adults looked like they were dying.
The 4 adults shook hands and smiled kindly at each other, and I wonder if their smiles were as fake as Mother's. I stood silently, glaring at the boy who just stared back. I saw something familiar in him. Something I sometimes saw in myself. Dread. Maybe I wasn't the only one forced to be here. Or maybe I was just overthinking everything. I could never be too careful with Mother and Father.
