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A Little Bit Chapter 36 93%
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Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

Warren

I wrench the wrought iron gate open as hard as I can, making the ancient hinges squeal in the night air.

I’m burning. My anger a barely contained fire that wants to consume everything in front of me.

The whole walk over here was just an endless loop of her voice replaying from the past. Telling me how bad this was. How she was going to save me.

Lies. Lies. Lies.

I use the key to open the front door and calmly go from room to room looking for her.

I finally find her in the formal living room, sitting by herself, a cup of tea in her hand as she faces away from me in front of the fire.

“Mother,” my hollow voice echoes.

“Oh!” she exclaims, whipping her head over her shoulder. When her eyes land on me, she startles more, setting the delicate tea cup down.

“Warren! Sugar! What are you doing here, darlin’? What a nice surprise,” she says excitedly while standing and walking toward me, her arms held out.

She’s dressed down—something that catches me off guard. I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen her like this. That probably sounds insane. She’s my mother. I must have seen her out of a blazer at some point. But my family has always been very formal—everything operating on a schedule, which I’m currently breaking by showing up without notice. If she would’ve known I was coming, she would have never taken off her facade.

Right now, she looks so… soft. No patriotic business attire. No makeup. A white silk robe is tightly tucked around her while her usually voluminous hair hangs limply around her face.

In the last moments before she reaches me, I study her face. It has a sad elation threaded through it. A melancholy that looks like it’s at home. Like maybe she looks like this every night, reminding me that I really don’t know this woman at all.

“It’s so good to see you,” she whispers.

I let her wrap her arms around me—take in the embrace, trying to remember it, because everything is about to change.

I breathe deeply. “Mother, why didn’t you tell me about Charlotte Johnson’s autopsy report?”

She stiffens in my arms, any warmth between us evaporating up into the centuries-old walls around us.

“Hmm?” she asks quietly, squeezing me tighter, like she knows it’s the last time.

“Her autopsy report,” I repeat, trying to keep my voice even. “It showed she had a large amount of oxy in her system. It suggested that she was trying to kill herself. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She pulls away from me, a look of incredulity poised on her face. “Goodness, sugar! What a story.” She shakes her head and begins walking back toward the fire, picking up her tea cup along the way, trying to give off an air of casualness, but the fine china in her hand rattles from her unsteady hand. “I know that what you did eats at you—the guilt, baby doll. I can’t imagine. But don’t make things up.” She ends by giving me a patronizing smile while the sound of rattling china permeates the ensuing silence.

She takes a sip of her tea, turning her face away from me and looking back at the fire. “What would even make you think that?”

“I know her brother.”

I see her stiffen again, but she recovers quickly.

“Oh. Poor boy. I’m sure he’s been through a lot. How nice of you to guide the poor soul and be his friend.”

“I’m not his friend. I’m fucking him. He told me about the report.”

Her teacup shatters on the floor. She stands quickly, turning toward me and showing the anger contorting her face.

“Warren James Baker.” There’s a slight tremble to her voice. “Don’t you speak like that around me! I am your mother. You watch your mouth.”

“Which part? My swearing, or the fact that I’m in love with a man?”

Her eyes widen more. “You know you can’t—y-you can’t be… that,” she manages to spit out, unable to even say the word gay . “You said you wouldn’t do that anymore. Our constituents—they’re very conservative. Traditional. They’ll never elect you as senator.”

I ignore that. “You lied to me. Do you know what I carried all these years? Thinking that the fault was all with me.” I swallow, trying to keep my voice from wavering. “You have no idea what I did to myself.”

I feel traitorous tears filling my eyes, one escaping and sliding down to my chin. Her eyes track it, but instead of some type of empathy showing, her face hardens.

“I did what I had to do, Warren. To continue this legacy—to pave the way for you.”

“Don’t pretend you did this for me.”

“I did!” she screeches. A manic look overtaking her eyes. “I love you. Do you know what this would’ve done to your future? They wouldn’t care that you weren’t at fault. They would just hear that you were driving that car and you killed her. That would be it. I had to keep it quiet.”

“That’s not what you were trying to do,” I say through clenched teeth.

“I did this for you.”

“No!” I shout, my fingers flying into my hair to tear at the roots. “You saw an opportunity . A way to scare the gay out of me. To trap me in your goddamn legacy that I don’t want. Well, guess what, Mother? It didn’t work. I’m still gay and I’m never going to be a fucking senator.”

She remains silent, eyes darting around the room, looking for something else to say.

“You added to that family’s pain. Did that matter to you?” I ask quietly.

She momentarily softens, looking away at a random point in the room. “And I’m sorry for that. But… it had to be done. Had. To. Do you know what Grandaddy would’ve done if he had found out?” She scoffs, starting to pace around the room, that softness leaving her.

“You’re the senator now. Not him. What could he do to you?”

Her face shutters over, like a big steel door closing me out of whatever lay on the other end of that question.

“Never you mind,” she says evenly.

I sigh and look at the floor, before straightening and looking into her eyes. “I’m not going to be a senator. Do what you want. Cut me off. Throw me out. But I won’t do it. It’s not what I want and I hope one day you’ll be able to accept me for who I am. Completely who I am.”

I turn away from her, heading toward the exit, a range of emotions threatening to bubble out of me.

She grabs my arm, but it’s soft. I can feel the sadness on her skin. “Warren,” she says, quietly, a hint of anguish at the end of my name. “Please don’t do this. Don’t leave.”

My shoulders sag. Some of the anger melting out of me when I turn to look at her pained face. “Was it really so bad? The idea that I would love another man one day? That you had to blackmail me into pretending?”

She gives a slight shake of her head, her nails slightly digging into my arm. “You know the voters, Warren. It wouldn’t be okay. This… this legacy is all I have.” Her voice cracks at the end before she clears her throat.

“You had me. Your son.”

She doesn’t say anything. I wait. The silence is deafening. It stretches out between us, swallowing anything we had left.

I turn back, pulling my arm from her, walking away like a zombie, out the front door and back toward my place.

I don’t remember the walk. I just show up in my house, walking to the kitchen, pulling out the same knife I tried to use the other day.

I stare at it for a long time. Remembering how I felt that day, how this object seemed to hold all the answers.

The house is quiet. SJ must be asleep, thankfully. She doesn’t need to see this.

I walk over to the living room, standing in front of the frilly chair that I didn’t pick out, all without taking my eyes off the knife in my hand.

My eyes dart to the chair, the pink floral pattern stinging my vision like a glare from the sun.

I take a deep calming breath and lunge for it, sinking the knife into the fabric until it hits the wooden frame, the flowers ripping under my fury. I yank it out and do it again. And again. Tears streaming down my face, I punctuate each of my stabs with a muttered, clenched word. “Fucking.” Stab . “Hate.” Stab . “This.” Stab . “Uncomfortable.” Stab . “Chair.”

I pull back, a weird giddiness drowning the rest of my rational thoughts as I stare at the tattered chair. The one that represents the autonomy I don’t have over my own life. At twenty-three years old.

I spin around frantically, searching the room for something else that will free me, only to find that everything isn’t mine. Everything was picked for me.

I knew that. I was there when it all happened. When the furniture was wheeled in and unpacked, revealing the ostentatious pieces Mother had picked out without my consent. I didn’t like any of it. I still don’t. But I just… accepted it.

I walk up to the coffee table. A mahogany piece with brass fixtures and ornate carving on the legs. I ram my foot into the edge of it so it flips over, then savagely kick at the thin legs until one of them flies off, hitting the far wall.

My chest heaves from exertion, but I have a smile on my face.

Craning my neck, I look at the crystal chandelier above my head. It’s huge and glittering. Ropes of crystals drape down from the ceiling, leading to brass frame work that swoops and swirls to more teardrops of clear, glittering stones hanging down.

I fucking hate it.

I jump, trying to reach for it. At my height, I can barely graze the lowest crystals hanging down. I need a tool or something like?—

“Use this,” SJ says, crazily close behind me.

I jump, gasping and clutching my chest as I spin around to stare at her.

She’s just standing there smiling. Already in her sleep shirt and shorts for the night, blonde hair piled on top of her head. She holds her hands out to me, making me look down at the sledgehammer she’s offering me.

“What the fuck?” I ask, bewildered that she even has this. “Where the hell did you get this?”

She shrugs. “In your cellar.”

I shake my head at her. “Okay, well why do you have it then?”

She purses her lips, a little annoyed at my questioning. “I saw what you were doing. You were too busy stabbing the fucking chair like Jack the Ripper to notice. I could see the trajectory of the night, so I got supplies.” She nods her head toward a hammer that lays on the floor next to our feet. “That one’s for me. You get the bigger one because this thing is honestly really heavy. Can you take it?”

I do, pulling it from her hands and giving her an appreciative smile before I raise it above my head, swiping at the monstrosity above our heads and watching crystal fly in all directions.

I wince. “This probably isn’t safe.”

She jumps to the hammer, bending down to pick it up and whipping herself back up, having it already raised above her head. “Who gives a fuck?! Let’s gooooo!” she yells, drawing out the last word as she walks up to a white and gold vase and smashes it.

We both go to town. Smashing mirrors. Slashing the furniture. Tearing at the wall paper. Until there’s nothing left.

Afterward, we both stand panting in the middle of the chaos, admiring the wreckage. The freedom.

“Now what?” I ask breathlessly.

“You make it yours,” she says, like it’s the most obvious answer in the world.

And maybe now, it is.

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