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My conversation with Georgie was fresh in my mind over the next week as I re-wrote the pages she’d asked for. I did everything I could to get into the mindset of my thriller again, from re-reading some of my favourite thrillers by other authors, to watching suspense-filled movies, to avoiding answering Orlando’s calls. I knew if I talked to him again, I’d turn to mush and my work would suffer some more, so it was best to just not pick up the phone when I saw it was him.

Amidst all of the stress of trying to get my work back up to my own standards, not to mention Georgie’s, and the temptation of picking up the phone every time I knew it was Orlando, I also had to deal with my mother. The term ‘bridezilla’ would be tame compared to the raving lunatic she’d turned into, freaking out over every little detail, being even more unpleasant than usual, if that were possible, and just generally making me want to shove her out into traffic every time she called.

But the phone calls would have been preferable to her sudden, random visits to my flat, clutching everything from fabric swatches to books full of invitation samples, to CDs from the DJ for her to listen to. Garret was apparently not being very helpful, and though Mom seemed a little frustrated at that, the idea of how much of his money she’d get to spend on her wedding always lifted her spirits. He’d told her the sky was the limit, and she was taking him quite literally.

“I really want peach, Peyton,” she whined for the hundredth time in two hours, the day after I’d sent my new pages to Georgie. My work being done for the moment was the only reason I hadn’t closed the door on her when she’d shown up unannounced, clutching pictures of hideous bridesmaids’ dresses that she liked. I’d been putting her off all week, always begging work as an excuse to kick her out, but this time she wasn’t having it. She’d resolutely settled herself on my nearly-clutter-free sofa and after pushing everything off of my coffee table onto the floor (”It can’t look any worse in here than it already does,” she’d sighed when I’d protested the mess), had spread out the pictures she wanted me to look at. As if I really had any choice in the matter.

“Peach is going to make me look like I’m wearing a tent that should be covering the reception,” I groaned, cringing at the awful shade that reminded me strangely of my long-dead grandmother’s faded bathroom wallpaper that hadn’t been changed since before my mother was born. That, combined with the strapless, form-fitting, cocktail-length dress she’d chosen, would make me look absolutely enormous, especially beside her svelte figure, which I’m sure is what she was going for.

“This isn’t about you,” she almost growled, gazing down at the dress again, while holding the colour swatch next to it. “You’ll wear what I want you to wear, and that’s the end of it.”

“You know, peach isn’t going to go very well with your complexion,” I said slowly, trying another tactic. “It’s going to highlight your wrinkles.”

“I do not have wrinkles!” she practically spat at me, her eyes flashing dangerously. “And peach will go perfectly with my cream-coloured dress.”

Yes, Mom had opted against pure white, allowing that it might be a ’stretch,’ given that she had a grown daughter. This was the only aspect of the wedding that she was approaching with anything close to common sense.

“Up until two weeks ago, you hated peach,” I pointed out, seeing that she was mentally digging in her heels, unwilling to budge even an inch. “What changed?”

“Garret likes it,” she said simply, as though that was all the explanation I needed.

“And?” I couldn’t help the sarcasm that dripped from my voice.

“And it’s my new favourite colour.” She sounded oddly like a child proclaiming her most bitter enemy was now her new best friend, and I had to suppress a frustrated sigh.

“It’s very bland,” I said, flipping through the pages of dresses. “Wouldn’t blue or green, or even black, be better?”

“Who wears black to a wedding?” Her voice was shrill with disapproval at the very idea.

“I, for one, would be more comfortable in black than in that god-awful peach colour,” I said before I could censor myself.

As I knew they would, tears filled her eyes. “You don’t want me to be happy, do you, Peyton?” she accused, her bottom lip trembling.

“I have nothing against you being happy, Mom,” I said slowly, feeling the role reversal kick in. I was now the adult, having to soothe the child who’d had her feelings hurt, but this was a part I’d unwillingly played many times before.

“Yes, it is,” she insisted, hastily gathering up her pictures. “You’ve never wanted me to be happy. You’re just like your father. You can’t stand the idea that someone as wonderful as Garret wants to be with me, while you’re stuck here, rotting away in this dingy little apartment all by yourself, without a person in this world who cares if you live or die!” The tears were flowing now, and she was trembling from head to toe.

Instead of feeling any pity for her, like I probably should have, seeing as she was coming apart at the seams right in front of me, I felt only disgust and anger at her words. This was the way she operated, throwing low blows when she was upset, not caring what she said or who she hurt. I’d been on the receiving end of this type of tantrum before, and I’d never once given in. I wasn’t about to start now.

“Mom, why don’t you just get the hell out, then, if you hate this dingy little apartment so much?” I snapped, getting up and pacing away from her. “It would suit me just fine to not have to be a part of this twisted wedding, so I don’t see why you’re here, insulting me and my lifestyle, while expecting me to help you with the details. You know damned well that you’re not going to listen to a fucking word I say, that you’re just going to be rude and immature, so why not save us both the trouble and just get the fuck out?”

“How dare you talk to me like that,” she screeched, rising in one fluid motion, clutching her planning materials to her chest. Her face bore the expression of a pious minister confronted with the town whore minutes after she’d been caught servicing the mayor, or something. She was still trembling, but the tears had stopped, leaving her perfectly made-up face streaked with black mascara.

“In my own home, I’ll talk to you any way I want to,” I said, forcing myself to stay calm. I’d already said what I wanted to say, and while I didn’t care about hurting her feelings anymore, I didn’t want to draw this out any further.

“How did I ever get stuck with such an ungrateful, ugly, fat lump of a daughter?” she almost screamed. She squared her shoulders in what I assumed she meant to be a dignified stance, but really just made her look like she’d left the hanger in her blouse, and took a few steps toward me.

“Look at you, Peyton,” she said, her voice cold and hard now, all trace of emotion gone. She was gearing up to hit below the belt, and I braced myself for it, having been on the receiving end of it many times before. “You’re hideous, you know that? The truth is, I don’t want you standing up with me on my wedding day, because I don’t want the world to know that I gave birth to someone so awful! You’re huge, you’ve got those grotesque scars, and even before all that, you were never very good looking. I’ve often wondered if there was a mix-up in the hospital when you were born, and I got you instead of the beautiful little girl I should have been sent home with. There’s no other explanation for why you’re so vile when I’m as beautiful as I am.” She paused for breath, but I wasn’t about to let her continue.

“You want to talk about vile, Mother?” I hissed, hating the fact that her words were affecting me so much. “Vile is a middle-aged woman trying to look twenty-five again so she can hang on the arm of some Neanderthal who probably makes fun of her behind her back, because she’s so old, and pathetic enough to be throwing herself at him. On top of that, you’re a bitch, a raving, egomaniacal, fucking bitch who should have been put out of her misery long ago. Do you think I want such a useless cow for a mother? You have no skills, nothing to offer the world, so essentially you’re a waste of skin, and I’m sorry you were ever cursed with me, because that means I was cursed with you. Get the fuck out of my home, get the fuck out of my life, and I hope your pretty-boy gives you everything you deserve.”

I spun around and went to the door, holding it open to show her I wasn’t kidding. This had to stop. My self-esteem was low enough without the one person in the world who was supposed to love me unconditionally telling me how gross I was. I didn’t need that in my life, and since she offered me nothing else, it was time she knew that.

“You’ll regret this, Peyton,” she spat on her way by me. “When I’m married and happy, you’ll want to be a part of it, and I won’t allow you back in my life. We’ll see who’s pathetic then, won’t we?”

I slammed the door in her face.

Unwanted, I felt the lump form in my throat and the raw ache that had been simmering inside me intensify until it was a burning pain that ripped through every inch of my body. I refused to give her the satisfaction of hurting me, but I couldn’t help it. What she’d said had cut deep, had confirmed everything I’d always thought about myself, and I needed to process it, to figure out what I was going to do with it, before I did anything else.

She was wrong, wasn’t she? She had to be. There were people in my life who cared if I lived or died, right? People who’d seen the scars and the extra weight and hadn’t cared? That thought stopped me cold.

Who had seen me in the last five years? My mother, of course, my father a few times, Olivia, Georgie, and one or two friends who I’d all but lost contact with. I knew what my mother thought, and I was pretty sure my father was on the same page with her, though he’d never actually come out and said it. Olivia very rarely looked me in the eye when we were forced to be face-to-face, but as far as I could tell, that was how she dealt with everyone, and Georgie was always too busy moving, pacing or fidgeting, to really pay close attention to my appearance. I’d seen her eyes roam over my scars only once, the first time I’d met her, and saw the look in her eyes as she’d disregarded them as unimportant, so I knew she didn’t care.

But were any of these people really my friends? My parents certainly weren’t, and as my mother had made so painfully clear, neither of them would care if I died tomorrow. Olivia and Georgie weren’t really friends, they were business associates, more interested in my work and the money they made off of me than in me as a person. They tried to be interested in my life, but I’d put up so many walls around myself that they just sort of gave up and contented themselves with our superficial relationships.

There was no one in my life who really cared about me for me, for who I was, who gave a shit for purely unselfish reasons. That fact hit me like a tidal wave and I had to sit down. I enjoyed my isolation, yes, but I’d never really looked at it this way before, telling myself that I had sufficient contact with the outside world and didn’t need physical contact with another human being to be complete. But was it true? If my own mother thought so little of me, loathed the very sight of me, then what would the rest of the world think? Why should they give a shit when she clearly didn’t?

I realized I was sitting on the floor in front of my couch, with my arms wrapped around my knees, rocking back and forth like I used to when I was a child. The tears had stopped, but I felt strangely dead inside, like there was nothing left but the raw, chafing pain that my epiphany had left me with. I didn’t know what to do, or how to get past this, or if I should even bother trying. My carefully structured little world was falling down around me, and I felt like I would suffocate under the pieces.