Demi Lovato Imagines

Posthumous pt.3

"Go and get in the car, sweetheart. I'll just be a minute."

She holds your bag out in front of her, pressing the handle into your palm, and clicks the car keys. Behind you, you hear the car unlock. 

"Where are we going?"

"Um, a hotel," she replies with a sarcastic grin.

"Yeah, but--"

"I'll just be a minute," she repeats, turning you around and pushing her knuckles into the base of your back. Your feet stumble out onto the front steps. 

She disappears back into the house, leaving you standing on the drive. The sun has dipped behind the houses, the air now chilly. A dog barks at the window across the road, an old woman standing behind it, peering through the blinds. All of a sudden, you're acutely aware of the windows, lit from the inside, as if all of the houses on the street are watching you with a relentless, unblinking stare. Shuffling your feet forwards, you make for the car. In the dusky light, you see the way that dust is streaked over the door and the roof and the handle, the ghosts of fingerprints and rain. Sliding into the passenger's side, you hold your bag on your knees, watching as, eventually, your mom steps outside, locking the front door of your childhood home behind her. She rolls a suitcase behind her, a shred of fabric sticking out through the zip. You hear her heave it into the trunk. 

"Ready?" she breathes as she slides in beside you. 

"For what?"

She tuts, shaking her head and turning the key in the ignition. 

"What's up with you, huh? For our holiday, dumb-dumb!"

You fix your eyes straight ahead, out the windscreen. She rests her hand on your thigh. 

"Sorry, sweet, I didn't mean that. I was just kidding, yeah? Okay, seatbelt on please."

She clips hers in but you don't move. 

"Seatbelt," she repeats, sharper this time. 

"Where are we going?" 

She sighs, sinking back into the leather chair. Only now, as the seconds pass, do you notice the empty wrappers, the cigarette butts, the sticky smear on the glove compartment. 

"It's a surprise."

"I need to tell grandma."

"No," she hisses, twisting her body around to face you and grabbing your chin in her hand. You let out a squawk of fright and she immediately lets go, chuckling lightly and smoothing down your hair. 

"No...You don't need to tell her, silly, this is just our little secret."

She starts to reverse out the drive, barely casting a glance out the back in case of any approaching cars. 

"But she'll be worried," you say, under your breath. Your hands clench at your sides as she slams on the brakes, your whole body lurching forward. 

"Worried?! Since when has she been 'worried' about us, eh?"

She watches your face for any sign. When you don't give her anything, she blows out slowly through her teeth. 

"Unbelievable."

"What?"

"I told you all that stuff in there," she shouts, pointing in front of her, at the house you grew up in, "and you still don't see it, do you?"

"Mom..."

"She doesn't care about us! Not really! She's more than happy to keep spinning her lies so that I can never be happy again!"