Seren

SEREN

I left Kiki in the pool house and made my way into the main house, down the second-floor hallway, and to my mother’s closed bedroom door. I pounded twice on it before entering, not wanting to catch her and my stepfather in the act. Been there. Done that. Got the visual scars to prove it.

“Who the hell’s the girl?” I demanded.

“What girl?” she asked focused on her reflection in her vanity mirror. She was applying something to her face—the one that already had more surgeries than I could count. I think she thought by altering the outside, she’d be able to alter the inside. But she’d sold her soul to the devil a long time ago, and there was no redemption on the horizon.

“Don’t play coy with me, Mother.”

“Ohhhhhh. You mean Grace?”

“Who’s Grace?” I asked, wanting to know more about the girl who didn’t cower when I glared.

My mother swiveled on her pillow-topped seat. I found myself searching for traces of the mother I once knew under all the changes she’d made to her appearance. Gone was the distinct nose like mine—replaced by an upturned one. Gone was the dark hair my brothers and I had—replaced by platinum blonde extensions. Gone was the Cupid’s bow lips girls loved about me—replaced by filled-in bubble lips. Even our family’s signature green eyes had been swapped out with blue contacts. “Don’t you listen when I tell you things?” she asked.

I pushed away the thoughts and steeled my features. “No.”

My mother sighed. “She’s Rosalie’s daughter. I told you she’d be moving into the helps’ quarters with Rosalie until she leaves for college in the fall.”

“I would’ve remembered something like that,” I clipped.

Confusion crossed my mother’s face. “Wait a minute. What time is it?”

“I don’t know. One.”

“Why aren’t you at school?” she asked, pretending to be the attentive mother she knew she wasn’t.

“I needed the day off.”

“You’re a senior in high school. What could you know about needing a day off?”

I ignored her dig. As if her life was so damn difficult. “Hire her.”

“What?”

“Grace. I want you to offer her a job. Say you think it’ll lighten Rosalie’s load or something. She can clean my room.”

“Your room?” she asked, waiting for the punchline.

“She just lost her dad, right?” I asked.

Her brows would’ve lifted had it not been for all the filler injected into her forehead. “You were listening.”

“She probably needs something to help get her mind off that shit.”

“Mouth, Seren!” my mother reprimanded.

I rolled my eyes. Now wasn’t the time to start mothering me. I was eighteen. Not twelve.

“That’s a nice gesture. I think I will offer her a job,” she said before spinning back around to look at herself in the mirror.

Nice gesture?

She had no idea.