Page 40 of Mom Com

She moves to my window, pulling back my blackout curtains. “There,” she exclaims as I squint. “Now get up.”

I run my hand over my face. “Would it be okay if—”

“No, it would not,” my mom replies, preemptively squashing my plans to weasel out of Mrs. Templeton’s luncheon. “And for heaven’s sake, take a shower. It smells like...”

She trails off and my eyebrows knit together as she moves toward me.

“What are you doing?” I protest lamely as she approaches my bed.

Her eyes widen. “My God, you smell like a back-alley distillery!”

I pop up into a sitting position, now on high alert. “Whatever you’re thinking—”

“What I’m thinking is that you were withthat boyagain,” she says like I did it specifically to upset her.

“You mean Jake... my boyfriend?”

“He has been nothing but trouble since the day you met him.”

“I met him in kindergarten.”

A warning flashes in her eyes and I close my mouth. “I’d suggest you pump the brakes, Madeline. Right now. With all of it,” she gestures broadly. “Or you’ll find yourself grounded.”

I want to point out that neither she nor Dad waited up for me or bothered to check on me when I got back, so she couldn’t be that concerned, but I know that’ll only make her angrier.

Instead, I just say, “Sorry.”

“I expect you downstairs and dressed at exactly one o’clock,” she says and smooths her blouse. She takes a good look at me like there’s something more she would say but decides against it. Instead, she leaves, closing the door quietly behind her.

I push back my covers, swinging my legs onto the floor and briefly pressing my fingers into my temples. I slowly plod up to my vanity, getting a look at myself in the mirror and wincing. I look like an elderly lapdog that fell asleep against a pillow and has her face fur pushed up on one side. I’m about to drag my sorry self into the bathroom when I spot the picture of me and Wilder on my vanity, which is usually parallel with the one of me and my dad but has moved six or so inches out of its normal position.

Suddenly, the memory of getting home last night hits me so hard that I stagger.

It comes in pieces. Wilder and Jake arguing about Jake’s sobriety... flashes of driving home in the back of Wilder’s Mercedes—me talking a mile a minute, Jake and Wilder doing the exact opposite, and eventually Wilder following Jake and me up to my door.

“Get back in your car, man,” Jake growls.

“I’m taking her inside,” Wilder replies with so much confidence that even Jake pauses. “There’s no way she’s making it up those stairs by herself without waking her parents.”

Jake laughs, but it’s an angry laugh. “You know she’s not taking you back, right? That you thoroughly screwed yourself on that front.”

I nod along. That sounds like something I agree with.

“Which is the difference between you and me,” Wilder fires back. “Doing something because it’s right, not because of what I’ll get in return.”

“You know what, Wilder, you go right ahead and take her in. Let her parents find you dragging their drunk daughter home and see how that goes,” Jake says like he hopes Wilder trips down the stairs on his pretty face.

I remember being confused then, or annoyed at Jake? Or Wilder? Both of them? I remember Wilder shushing me as we crept through the house and having the good sense to listen to him. And I remember announcing that I wasn’t drunk anymore as I proceeded to haphazardly remove pieces of my clothing and carve a zigzag path to my bed.

Wilder turned around then, giving me privacy as I undressed and slid under my comforter. He waited by my vanity... and what? Picked up this picture?

I throw an accusatory glance at my nightstand where I found the two Advil and the glass of water this morning. I don’t need him taking care of me! I snatch up the picture frame from my vanity, loosening the back latches. I’m about to yank the picture out and throw it in the trash, the one Liv took of us at the beach when we first started dating, but I hesitate.

A small growl escapes my lips, but I can’t actually muster the resolve. And so, I relatch the picture and place it face down, like maybe if I just don’t look at it then it will cease to exist, which I realize, has been my strategy for everything lately.

CHAPTER14

Strawberry Pillows Fight—