First at Last (Updated Version)

Chapter Twenty-Two

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, spare me the melodrama. Of course, I loved you. But," She shook her head and did not finish the thought. But.

She could never love me. Not in the way she loved Alice. And it made so much sense. Everything she'd ever done to me was not because of me. It was solely her. She did not get to choose her life. The irony was hard to miss.

My hands began to shake and my face burned. "Do you expect me to feel sorry for you?" I asked, my voice harsher than I intended. "Do you think I could ever pity you after every awful thing you've done to me? Because you could never be happy?" I stood from my chair so quickly it nearly toppled over.

She stood as well, her eyes blazing. "I did not ask for your pity. I don't want it. But you cannot speak to me that way. I am your mother and you owe me respect."

"I do not owe you anything," I replied, my voice hard. "You have never acted like my mother. I have tried so hard to be what you wanted, to be like Alice, but it would never have been enough. I could have killed myself to be like her, and still you would not have cared because I am not Alice." Even as I said it, tears blurred my vision. I wiped them away angrily and glared at Mother. She opened her mouth to speak, but I cut her off. I was not done. "And what of Alice? Alice, the daughter you love, the daughter who matters to you. She is just as miserable as I am. And do you care? I don't think you do—"

"I am trying to secure a good future for her!" Mother snapped. "She might not be happy, but she will be secure. She will never want for anything. She will lead, like she was meant to. She can learn to be content with what she has if she has everything else."

"Like you? You are not happy, Mother. You are angry and bitter. Perhaps you are secure, but you have never been content. Are you really so keen to give Alice the life you are living? The one you hate?"

Mother stepped toward me and it took every bit of willpower I possessed to keep from flinching away, from backing down. "You have no right to talk to me about things you cannot understand. You have no idea what I've done to give her a good, secure future. To give you one. You are an ignorant child who knows nothing of the world. You cannot pretend to understand the way it works. You don't know."

"You never bothered to teach me! You criticize me for knowing nothing, and yet you never tried to help me learn. It is your fault I do not know, not mine."

She raised her hand and I flinched, preparing to feel the scrape of nails across my cheek.

"Mother," Alice said, striding into the room. "That's enough." Her voice was light, gently chiding, as though she were speaking to a wily child and not a grown woman about to hit her daughter.

Though, to my surprise, it worked. Mother still, her eyes widening, and she dropped her hand. "Alice, you are interrupting."

"Yes, and I'm terribly sorry for doing so, but I do not think my gown for the upcoming ball fits quite right and I was hoping you could give a second opinion before I send it off to the tailor's for them to fix."

"Oh, yes of course." Mother smoothed out her gown and turned to me, her eyes cold, her face severe. "You will speak at their wedding, and that is the end of that." She turned on her heel and strode out of the room.

Alice met my eyes for the briefest moment and they glinted with a knowing light, before she turned and followed Mother out of the room.

I took a trembling breath and sank down into my chair before the table. My eyes blurred with tears once more and I pressed my palms against my eyes, hoping to stop them before they could fall. It didn't really work.