“Okay. I’ll see you tonight.” I smiled as I left, but that smile slowly disappeared as I made my way to my car. I was tired of smiling for her. Tired of playing nice and pretending I was hurt because her friend didn’t like me.
My only hope was that Corey would be there tonight. He was in town. I knew because I’d driven by Maxwell Aesthetics before going to the coffee shop and seen his car parked in his assigned spot.
It’d been three weeks since he last saw me. It was time to make another move.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Let me share a little memory with you, Marriott. A memory that I’ll never forget.
Every summer in July since I was a little girl, my parents would take me to the water park. They’d pack a cooler full of cold cut sandwiches, juices, and freeze pops. I’d bounce out to the car from the apartment we lived in with my towel and my favorite doll, ready to enjoy a full day of fun.
We’d get there early just to get the best seat in the house, which was only a few feet away from the biggest slide in the water park. From that special spot, there’d always be a cool mist to shoot on us from all the people who’d go down the big slide while screaming their hearts out. Plus, it was a shady spot, not too much sun, just enough to soak some of it in. My mother would squirt and smear cold sunscreen on my back as the sun beat down on us. She always wore this white sun hat with an orange ribbon, and my father always had one of those old fishing hats on to block the heat. As Mama rubbed sunscreen on my back, Daddy rubbed it on hers.
I looked forward to those summers. Our water-park escapes happened every single summer since I was five until one day it just stopped. I had turned fourteen, and long gone were the days when I was an only child with loving parents.
My parents could no longer take me to the water park. I could no longer suck on fruity freeze pops or feel the coolness of the sunscreen on my back colliding with my mama’s soft hands.
Daddy couldn’t watch me do cannonballs at the deep end of the pool, or teach me how to hold my breath under the water anymore. Those precious memories had ended—stolen away from me as quick as night and day, and it was all because of Lola.
Now, Lola was rubbing sunscreen on my back, talking about her rich people problems, and I was trying my hardest not to say anything I didn’t mean. Memories like that don’t just fade away, Marriott, especially not when you had a good life before.
By no means were my parents rich. For the most part they lived paycheck to paycheck, but they always provided for me, always took care of me. They saved up every summer just to create those memories at the water park, and even though some of the slides would be out of commission and the concession stands always ran out of snacks, it didn’t matter. We had one another, and it was fun.
Sometimes I looked at Lola and wondered how she could live with herself after what she’d done to them. How could she continue smiling? Living a grand ol’ life when she’d destroyed another?
Did she not feel guilt? Shame? Hurt? Did she not realize how much she impacted my life, created all this mental blurriness inside me?
I am the way I am because of what happened to my family, and how my childhood flipped upside down overnight. I had no family in Florida. My parents had no siblings and my grandparents were dead. Whatever kin could be found had no idea I even existed, so they didn’t take me in.
I was left alone.
Lost.
Confused.
Crushed.
I watched Lola dive into the pool and resurface. Her hair became curlier, water dripping from it and running down her chest. I wanted to jump in on top of her and shove her head under the water . . . but I knew better. She had house staff on duty, and not only that, but it would have been too quick and way too easy for her. I spent years suffering because of her. It was her turn to suffer now.
I walked into the pool in my white bikini, allowing the cold water to wrap around me. Lola smiled from the other end of the pool and I forced one back at her. Then she sank under the water and swam my way. As she resurfaced, she laughed in my face, droplets trickling over her lips.
“I needed this,” she breathed out.
“It’s the perfect day for a swim,” I said in agreement.
“Right? So, I told Georgia to make chicken for you tonight, and I’m going with a strawberry walnut salad. Is that okay? If you want a salad, I can tell her.”