a/n: important note below, please read after finishing the chapter :)
nineteen
I'd evaporated into a shower of electricity as soon as that creepy, slithering feeling of being followed stopped prickling along my back. Ducking into a dark, narrow alley, I rested my hand atop an abandoned ATM, and seconds later was enveloped in the stream of electrons travelling through the city.
I arrived, flustered and breathing unevenly, in the center of our bedroom. Mom stumbled away from the sudden appearence of a body in the room, then her eyes narrowed when she took in who it was.
"Rae. I'm disappointed in you." She began, crossing her arms above her chest and squaring her shoulders. An offensive stance. I mimicked it.
A frown tugged at the corners of her lips, and my eyebrows lifted. Her eyes, so identical to my own, stormed in annoyance.
"You should've told us where you went-"
"- but I'm just fine on my own, aren't I?" I gestured to my unharmed self, "And I've been fine on my own for the past years!"
"You know damn well you haven't been fine. You've just been abusing whatever freak ability you were gifted! We would've been fine even without your money."
I blanched, flinching as if the words had struck me with literal fists.
"What do you mean?"
Her face turned stricken, and realization dawned in her eyes that she'd said something better concealed, left in the shadows.
"Sweetheart, I didn't -" She reached for me, an offering of a comforting hand. A mother's touch, trying to console someone who'd never had to be consoled. Not since the burdens of a household had rested upon my shoulders.
"What do you mean?" I repeated again, stepping away from her open palm, the reassurance offered. Denying it.
"Nothing. It's nothing - you know I love you, Rae, you know-"
"You wouldn't tell me that unless you were hiding something, Mom." Never before had the word sounded so hollow, and - and accusing.
She exhaled deeply, breath hitching halfway through. Her back slackened, and she sank down on the bed. Her eyes were glistening with a sheen of tears when she looked at me.
"I - I wasted our money, Rae." She began, wiping away a crystalline tear journeying down her round cheeks, "- purposely."
Schooling my features the best I could, I willed myself not to break. Stay strong.
Then flashes of our fight before we'd left Crown Heights travelled through the front of my thoughts, dimming me temporarily. What she'd revealed, what she'd said. It'd torn a rip in the fabric of our relationship, one I think an endless length of thread would never be able to fix.
"Why? How?"
Her breath hitched.
"The money - it all went somewhere else."
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