Filed To Story: Pretty Poisoned Novel by Elle Mitchell
“No! No, I’m not going to have her be a spectacle at my wedding. She’s made enough of a spectacle out of us already. It’s my day, so, no sorry, Teagan. And you need to put that out, Mom.”
Blake leaves the dressing room, and my mom locks the door behind her.
“You made her do this, didn’t you?” I ask, watching my mom exhale smoke before passing me the cigarette again. “Why did you make her do this?”
“‘Made’ is a strong word,” she says, shrugging. “I just want you to feel like you belong in this family, Teaganthat’s all. And I want you to get better. I just I don’t know what I did. I raised you both the same. I don’t know what happened.”
“Nothing happened,” I tell her. “You didn’t do anything, Mom; I was just born this way. There’s nothing to fix.”
“Ma’am!” Angela says, pounding on the door. “Ma’am, you need to come out right now!”
“Don’t come in! I’m naked, and I’m mentally ill!” I shout.
My mom inhales, choking back laughter.
“There is no smoking in this building! We have dresses worth more than cars in here!”
“Well, maybe you should think about that from an ethical perspective!” I reply.
“Don’t make me call the police!”
“It’s out,” my mom says, extinguishing the cigarette against the dressing room wall. “Fucking cunt.”
Maybe I did fall from her tree after all.
“I want a margarita. Do you want a margarita?”
I shrug. “I’m not going to say no.”
“Get dressed,” she says, leaving the room.
I step out of the bridesmaid gown and back into my own clothes, and then my mom and I walk to the car together, where Blakely has already retreated in shame.
“It’s not personal, Teagan,” Blakely says when I climb into the vehicle.
“It is,” I tell her. “It’s very, very personal, Blake. As usual, I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Teagan”
“We’re getting tacos,” my mom interrupts. “And margaritas. We’re done with this conversation.”
We pull into the parking lot of a nearby Mexican restaurant and then follow the hostess through the empty, nearly dark dining room to our table. Mom immediately requests the largest pitcher of margaritas possible.
“Well, I approve of the lighting,” Mom says after the server leaves. “It’s great for privacy.”
“Yeah, or if you’re out with someone you’re ashamed of,” I say. “Perfect for dining with mistresses or disgraced family members.”
“No one said they were ashamed of you, Teagan. Stop being dramatic,” Blakely says.
“No, I’m just embarrassing and disgusting, right?”
“Stop it,” my mom says. “Both of youyou’re too old for this shit. Fuck, I’m too old for this shit.”
I feel bad for hermaybe I shouldn’t, but I do. She’s trying, but I’m not Blakely. I just don’t fit.
The server sets a pitcher of margaritas down on the table.
“Thank god,” my mom says. “Can we get some guacamole and queso for the table, too?”
“Sure,” the server says. “I’ll be back with that in just a few minutes.”
“I’m going to use the restroom,” I tell them.
I leave the table and cross the dining room toward the bathrooms. The mariachi music playing at an acceptable decibel in the dining room blares loudly inside the small space. I use the toilet, flush, and begin washing my hands before something gold reflecting off the bathroom mirror catches my eye.
Turning off the water, I look up and see a tall figure dressed in all black with a gold mask casually leaning against the back wall, his arms crossed in front of him.
I roll my eyes and grab a paper towel.
“I know you’re not real,” I tell him. “You’re not the first not-real person I’ve seenor fucked for that matterand I’m sure you won’t be the last.”
“Is that what you think?” his muffled voice asks.
“Yep,” I say, pulling a paper towel from the dispenser. “Pretty sure the real masked assholes aren’t allowed to talk, for one. And two, I was under the impression you all were a little stealthier than this. Chilling in a women’s restroom? Really? Go fuck yourself, Bone Saw.”
“I made you come. Hard.”
“I wouldn’t hallucinate sex that doesn’t even get me off,” I scoff. “I don’t hate myself that much yet.”
I toss the paper towel in the trash and leave the room, scolding myself for engaging with one of my delusions in public. If I want them to stop, this certainly isn’t the way to do it. Maybe I should have specified that not only are hallucinations of my ex-lovers not to follow me home, but any and all hallucinations are unwelcome.
I slide into the booth across from Blakely and my mother. “Did I miss anything good?” I ask, taking a chip from the middle of the table and dipping it in the guacamole.
“You know what I just realized?” Mom asks. She and Blakely both have identical goofy-ass looks on their faces that weren’t there before. I’m almost afraid to ask what I missed in the last five minutes.
“What?”
I reach for my margarita, but she pulls it away.
“This is your first drink!”
My eyes go wide. “I’m sorrywhat?”
“Come on,” she says. “Humor me. It’s your first legal drink since you turned twenty-one.”
I mean, sure, I guessif you don’t count the half-fifth of whiskey I threw back and threw up last night.
“Okay, fine. It’s my first drinkvery thrilling. May I have it back now, please?”
“Not quite yet,” she says. She and Blakely take out their phones just as a few restaurant employees gather around the table and one places a sombrero on my head.
God damn it.
As they sing “Feliz Cumpleaños,” my mom slides the margarita back to my side of the table, recording on her phone as I take my “first legal drink,” downing nearly half in one go in an attempt to drown the embarrassment.
They’re doing this to make me feel includedto make me feel like I belongbut they don’t know me at all. And if you have to try to make space for someoneif you have to go out of your way and even then you have no idea how to do it, then maybe they just don’t fit.
That’s what’s happening here. I’ll never fit.
It’s nothing I didn’t already know, but still, when I left Rancho San Flores, a part of me did believe I could make it work. I thought maybe I could twist and bend my pieces until they snapped, and I’d fit into this box marked “normal” and find a way to be happy there.
After all, people in the box marked “normal” don’t get high and kill people. They don’t get duped by some psychotic rockstar douchebag into joining a cult and believing they’re in love only to end up face down in the dirt alone or in jail.
Now, the thought of fitting in that box makes my throat close up; I can’t breathe. And in case I needed one more reminder of just how far from normal I am, the masked man leaning against the doorframe of the darkened hallway across the room salutes me like an asshole.
New Book: Returned To Make Them Pay
On her wedding anniversary, Alicia is drugged and stumbles into the wrong room—straight into the arms of the powerful Caden Ward, a man rumored never to touch women. Their night of passion shocks even him, especially when he discovers she’s still a virgin after two years of marriage to Joshua Yates.