Bullet

Chapter 21 - Masks of Protection

Chapter 21
Masks of Protection

A/N - The photo to the side is of Clay! 

I couldn’t even find the words to respond to that. I just sat there, jaw probably sitting in my lap and my fingernails curling into the skin of my palms. Everything seemed to freeze and I felt nothing but…stupidity. Clay was perched in his chair, a smug grin on his lips as he watched it all unfold on my face.

“It’s a shock to you, huh?” he asked, using the tips of his white sneakers to lift him up and push the chair back slightly.

I shook my head but didn’t know why I did it. I wasn’t disagreeing with his statement because I was exactly that, shocked. Not to mention confused, disgusted, and a little hurt. Maybe it was just my subconscious way of mixing up the jumble of thoughts in my head to make some sense of this.

“I don’t…” I trailed off as soon as I began. “She knew?”

He just nodded his head, shrugging like it didn’t matter to him. It probably didn’t, the fact that my mother knew about his mental instability and how she chose to ignore it all this time. She could have saved Carter’s life; saved Clay’s…saved mine. She sat around the house blaming Clay for what he’d done, when it reality, she was the one who allowed him to do it.

How do you let your own son go on with those types of thoughts?

I could feel my skin ripping beneath the ends of my nails, the more emotional I was getting. As this moment, I wanted to run from this room and get home to question her. I wanted answers, just like I’d been searching for since this all started. I wanted to confront her and make her state what she had done wrong. Did my dad know too?

“Does Dad…” I went to ask, but Clay immediately shook his head.

Clay and my father had a rocky relationship from the start. During Dad’s rehab stint when he was emotionless and didn’t want to interact with others, Clay was hurt without his dad there to stick by his side, especially during one of his worst times when he was dealing with Carter. But growing up, my dad was Clay’s go-to, his confidant. Clay wanted to grow up to be my dad before all of this mess happened.

Even if he hated my mother right now, he’d never be able to hate my dad. He could talk to my mom and I anyway he wanted, but he’d never be able to talk to my dad that way.

“How could she keep a secret like this? She never came to you to solve this?”

“She never said a word. She just kept coddling me like I was a baby, like she’d done for years. It’s one of the reasons I resented her so much. She was never there to listen, just to dust me off and throw me back to the wolves. She treated me like I was a child and I was overreacting about all of these things at school.”

As Clay rambled on, I found myself even more awestruck than I already was. All this time, I figured that those nights where Clay and my mom were sheltered away in his bedroom, him with his face down in the pillow and her stroking his back was just my mother sending him soothing words and comfort. Meanwhile, she was babying him and telling him that his problems weren’t as big as he made them seem.

What, were the black eyes and bruises not enough for her to believe that he had hit rock bottom?

He took a breath, the smug smirk gone from his face. “She hid the fact that she knew very well, I’ll give her that. I didn’t have a clue. I was under the assumption that Grayson hadn’t told anyone. I figured I was in the clear.”

I closed my eyes as I tried taking all of this in. “I don’t understand. I was under the impression that Mom was always comforting you when you guys were alone in your room those nights when you came home from fights. You’re telling me that she just told you to stop overreacting?”