Chapter 2

Taylor

 

Home sweet home. Yeah, fucking right. It was never home, and it surely wasn’t sweet. Everything that has happened under this roof was blamed on me. I was the reason my mom died of cancer. I was the reason the maid quit. I was the reason I needed to be shipped off to a school overseas. Now that I’ve finished with school, I’m here again. What does that say about me? I was happy, or at least some kind of alternative sense of happy, when I was in Rome. It was a strange place. It wasn’t home, but neither is here. Here all I feel is depressed and useless.

“Are you settled in?” my dad asks as I sit on the posh comforter he had brought in for my room. He stands in the doorway of my room with his arms crossed over his chest.

“Should I be?” I ask, my voice full of sarcasm. He knows I don’t want to be here.

“What is your problem now, Taylor? Do you not want to live here? Is that it?” He roars with that fire in his voice. The same fire that blamed me for everything when I was younger.

“You want the honest truth? No, I don’t. I’d rather have my own place. This house holds too many memories for me,” I tell him truthfully.

“Those memories were all you made them to be! You should have thought about that when you were younger!” he snaps, his hands running through his graying hair.

I know I didn’t cause my mother’s cancer. How could I? I was seven for God’s sake, and that isn’t something caused by a person. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it deep within my soul, though. There’s a part of me that cries out for her, a part that wishes for her to be here again.

When you’re seven, you believe anything your parents tell you. So when my dad blamed me for her getting sick, I believed it was my fault. Even to this day, I hear his nagging voice saying that I ruined her life. I didn’t know any better then. Although I do now, but that does little to ease the ache in my chest. The ache of knowing that I will never get to see her or talk to her again. It’s hard for the soul.

“If you must have a place of your own, I will get it set up.” He walks from the room in his overpriced Italian leather shoes. He’s always so damn showy with his money. Another thing I hate about him.

I drop back on the bed and close my eyes wishing this day had never come. I was okay living in Rome. I didn’t have many friends, but I was living and that’s all that mattered. Here I feel like a caged animal. I feel like my every move is being watched. It makes me nervous and uneasy.

I slide my phone out and dial, Beth. She’s the only friend I have around here. When I was sent away, Beth and I would write each other letters and when it was time for our family phone calls, they would all go to her.

“Hey! Are you back?” She squeals into the phone excitedly.

“I’m back. Don’t count on coming over here, though. Dad is being an ass.” I sigh into the phone. I know that he won’t let her over here. Even if I am considered an adult now. He doesn’t see me that way. Probably because he sent me away when I was eight. That’s right. The good old mayor sent his only daughter away when she was a mere eight years old. He said it’s because he couldn’t handle seeing me since I look a lot like my mom. I knew it was because he blamed me.

“God, I hate your dad. You can stay here. I already told you that,” Beth says with a hint of annoyance in her voice. That’s nothing new. She’s hated my dad since we were kids. She never liked the way he treated me. Beth is the only friend that I’ve kept since being sent away, and I cherish that.

“I know, but you have a life, Beth. I think he’s going to get me a place. I need to look for a job. I don’t want anything from him.” I sigh. It’s true. I don’t, but when you are his daughter, you don’t get much of a choice.

“I know April said they were hiring down at the diner. I could see if she still needs help,” Beth says.

“Yeah, let me know. Otherwise, stripper it is!” I jokingly tell her.

Beth laughs until she’s in tears when she says, “Your dad would for sure have a heart attack! That would be the only reason to strip. Leggs is always looking for strippers!” She laughs harder.

“Is that still open?” I ask. I knew about that place when I was younger but even back then it was falling down.

“Yeah, it is. New owners. They have a male night on Thursdays. We should go!” She squeals in delight.

“I’m all for it! I could use a night out,” I tell her before thinking about it. I doubt she’ll remember come Thursday anyway.

“Good. Then Thursday we are going out. I think Michelle knows the new owner; she can get us in. I’ll call her.” I sigh when Beth hangs the phone up.

I wish this wasn’t what my life has come down to. I wish I had a life. All I have is the regret of the past and my new diploma. I took a few years of college, but I didn’t finish it when dad sent for me. One more year. One more year and I’ll be twenty-one. A twenty-one-year-old stuck living with her father who despises her.

One day I will make it out from under his shadow. One day I will live a real life.