Page 90 of Such Sharp Teeth

I start chuckling. She tries to resist, but eventually joins in.

“You surprise me,” she says. “You’re my daughter. You’re of me. I raised you. But I don’t know where you came from.”

“It’s a mystery.”

“I’m very proud of you,” she says. “I just want to see you happy. If that’s with Ian or in Manhattan with your job. Whatever life you choose.”

“Thanks, Mom. I appreciate that.”

“You’ll be successful no matter what you do. You’re very driven. Smart. Strong,” she says. She pauses long enough for me to get nervous about what she’s going to say next. “Everything that happened, everything you’ve been through, it’s made you the strong woman you are today.”

I think I understand what’s happening here. I think she’s insinuating that the incident with Dave was actually for the best because it made me a “strong woman.” I think she’s trying to tell me that I should be grateful for my trauma because it’s somehow positively contributed to my personal development.

There’s no winning. The trauma is either your fault or it’s a gift. It’s either You should have done this to stop it or Look what good has come of it! If you don’t get over it, why can’t you get over it? Why can’t you get past it or learn how to cope? Or if you do find some way to move on with your life in a socially acceptable manner, then you’re so brave and so strong, and aren’t you amazing? Let’s applaud you for moving forward while there’s a knife at your back.

The wind shrieks through the crack in the window.

“You’re a survivor.”

It’s like Scarlett said. Mom can’t accept any responsibility. She can’t accept responsibility for letting him into our house, for not listening to me, for not paying attention, for not being more supportive in the aftermath. She couldn’t live with herself. She can barely live with herself now. Why else would she say something like that? Why else would she keep trying to rationalize, to justify what happened?

I know I’m not getting an apology. I know that it’s never going to come, that I’m never going to get what I want from her. She doesn’t have it to give. And still, I’m waiting. I’m hoping.

That’s the problem. I know, but I can’t truly accept it because I’m holding on to this hope.

“Rory?”

I grip the steering wheel. My pulse quickens. The gallop of my heart is earsplitting.

I inhale. Through the open window, I smell roadkill. Meat. Whatever it is, it hasn’t been dead for long.

Saliva pools under my tongue.

There was a rabbit. The night of my transformation. I remember now. It was fast, but I was faster. It was easy to skin with my teeth, sleek underneath the fluff of its fur. Very pink without its coat.

I can taste it. Metallic. Sweet.

I’m so hungry.

“Rory?”

My vision tints red.

“You should have told me,” she’d said back then. Should have, should have, should have.

“I loved him,” I heard her say. She was crying at the kitchen table the week after Dave had been arrested, crying to a friend on the phone. “I really loved him.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

And I was. I was very sorry.

“Rory, are you all right?”

The taillights ahead of me blur. The highway blurs. They’re lost in the swell.

There’s no more roadkill. That scent is gone. There’s only Chanel No. 5.

And my heartbeat. That’s gone, too. I listen for it, but it’s lost to me. I can hear hers, though. I can hear hers so clearly.