Dare You to Hate Me by B. Celeste (classic fiction .txt) 📕

I’m ready to give up. “Porter got all new sports equipment last week even though you guys just spent a ton of money on him for other things. Way more than the money I’m asking to go to New York City.”

Mom turns to me, filter full of fresh dark roast grounds in her hands and says, “Your brother’s situation is different. We’re investing in a hobby that could lead him somewhere.”

My lips part. “My baking—”

Her laugh is abrupt. “You’re only baking because the woman next door got it through your head that you can make it work as a career. I’m sorry, Ivy, but I don’t see it happening. Most of the things you make end up in the trash anyway. That’s perfectly good food wasted, not to mention money. A trip to New York City with your class isn’t going to get you any further with the silly dream of yours.”

Swallowing down the hurt, I fall back into the seat at the table and watch her finish prepping the coffee and turning on the machine. When her eyes meet mine, her head tilts in exasperation. “Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t say that to upset you, I’m being realistic. Porter is good at what he does. He loves football and your father agrees he could get a scholarship someday to a good college.”

“How come you don’t believe in me like you do in him?” I ask, unable to keep our gazes locked in fear of what I’ll see. “Mrs. Griffith says I can do whatever I want if I believe in myself.”

My mother grumbles as her slippers shuffle around the kitchen to grab a coffee cup from above the sink. “Mrs. Griffith obviously doesn’t know what it’s like to struggle. People who have the means can do whatever they want, but we are not those people. The sooner you realize that the quicker you’ll understand that life is not a Hallmark movie. You’re fourteen, Ivy. It’s time you start thinking about an honest future for yourself that way you don’t end up—”

My eye twitches at her abrupt stop. I stare down at the dirt on the floor I must have tracked in after coming in to meet Aiden at our fort until I hear another sigh escape her. “I want what’s best for both of my children. Parents have to learn lessons to help teach their kids. I’m saving you from making my same mistakes.”

When I finally find the courage to lift my head and face her, she’s not even looking at me. Her eyes are trained on the coffee dribbling into the half-full pot in front of her. “And what mistakes are those? Having us in the first place? It seems like that’s a reoccurring regret you like to remind us of.”

The room grows eerily quiet save the drip, drip, drip of coffee as it fills to the top of the pot.

“I swear, I don’t know how to handle you and your mouth sometimes,” she replies a few long heartbeats later. She pours herself a cup of coffee before walking over to the table without glancing at me once. “I don’t need all this extra chaos right now, Ivy. And that’s all you are when you throw these little tantrums. I’m sorry I can’t be like your friend’s mother, but you’re stuck with me. If you don’t like it, perhaps you should go to Grandma Gertie’s for a little while.”

I stiffen at the comment. “What?”

Mom sets her cup down and picks up her checkbook again. Her eyes shift to me. “I’m not saying I don’t love you, but you create more problems than I need. It seems like nothing I do is enough. I give you money for food and you complain about not having money to go to the city. I ask you to watch Porter while I go to the store and help your father and you act like I’m ruining your life. What do I need to do to show you I’m trying here? What do I have to do to get it through your head that life isn’t fair?”

My lips part to say something, but I realize I have nothing. No suggestion. No comeback. Not even an apology. Because I’ve learned not even those can mend what distance is separating us further and further from each other with every conversation we have.

“Maybe going to Gertie’s wouldn’t be so bad,” she admonishes. Gertie lives clear across the state, close to the Canadian border. “She loves baking, I’m sure she could teach you a thing or two. And it’s no big city, but she lives in a far bigger town than Haven Falls. There are opportunities for you that we can’t offer here.”

“Are you really trying to get rid of me?”

She closes her eyes and says nothing.

“You’d feel bad if I left,” I inform her, standing up and waiting for a reply. “You’d miss me, especially because I wouldn’t be around to distract Porter while you and Dad argue about something stupid.”

Her voice is pained when she says, “Go to your room please. I don’t want to see your face for the rest of the day.”

I do as she asks, but her words echo in my head as I slip on a pair of shoes, open my bedroom window as quietly as possible, and throw a leg over the pane.

I don’t want to see your face.

It’s not the first time she’s told me that.

I know as soon as I walk in the house after a long shift at work and see all the girls stuffed into the small living room that there’s some sort of house meeting going on. And since I wasn’t invited, their cautious eyes as I enter say it’s about me. I stop by the archway and look around, meeting Raine’s eyes that instantly drop to the floor.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

Sydney flattens her shirt that looks way too fancy for a night in. She always dresses to impress