~Shout out to gentlefiend for the gorgeous banner at the top.

For the past few days, the weather had me bundling up and blasting the heat in Hannah's car on our way home from school. Today was a warmer day for early March and I decided to walk home from university. My shoes were digging into my heels and it was driving me insane. I was now second-guessing my decision to trek the 20-minute walk to Zane's apartment.

With one hand wrapped around my coffee and grumbling to myself, I waited for the light to change. When it did, I easily stepped onto the road, which I immediately regretted when a cyclist ran his bike into my legs. The impact made me spill my coffee all over myself. Pain spread across my body, filling me with an uncontrollable rage. "Asshole!" I screamed to the man on the bike, who was sneering at me.

"Who you calling asshole? You should watch where you're going, you little bitch!" I should have counted to ten and walked away, leaving the man and his stupid bike behind. Instead, I let my anger dictate my actions and reached over to grab ahold of his bike.

Shaking his bike slightly, I shot back, "it's my right of way, dickhead!"

"Stop touching my bike," the man said through gritted teeth. We glared at each other for a long moment, neither one of us saying anything. The sound of blaring horns broke me from my daze. As I turned away from the cyclist, I heard him call me a Karen. Not wanting to cause more of a scene than I already had, I raised my middle finger at him as I walked away.

I should have let Hannah drive me home after class.

Near Zane's apartment, there was a bench that faced the street on which a familiar-looking woman sat. "This day just keeps getting better and better," I said to myself, approaching the woman who stood up from the bench when she spotted me.

She pulled her sunglasses off. "Sarah! I have been trying to call you all day," she gushed while I quickly moved past her.

"I was at school," I answered. It was silent inside the apartment building. That was until my mother followed me in. Her heels made a clicking sound on the floor as she trailed after me into the elevator. "What do you want?"

My mother was a tall woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. There was brown eyeshadow on her lids, which was probably from her makeup line, Ageless. Jane Atef was a walking advertisement for her all-natural and cruelty-free makeup. 

She was so young, so gorgeous and so unlike me that sometimes it surprised me that we were even related. "I'm not allowed to visit my daughter now?" she said, her words laced with vinegar.

Together we stepped out of the elevator and silently made our way down the hallway. Opening the door to the apartment, I dramatically waved my arm in front of her. "After you, mother."

She looked down at me, with her nose held high, the same way she used to do when I was a teenager. "Thank you, Sarah," she said and took a seat on the couch.

Dropping my bag onto the ground, I pulled off my soaked coat and hung it on the coat rack beside the door. "You want anything?" I asked. My mother was looking around the apartment, her gaze jumping from one thing to the next. She crossed her long legs.

"I'm okay. Please sit with me," she said while she patted the seat beside her. Her blue eyes were wide but void of any emotion.

 I collapsed onto the armchair that was adjacent to the one she had claimed. My mother passed her eyes across me, from my face to my legs, before landing onto my face again. The last time she came over was after Kat passed away and she had done the same thing.

"We both know that you didn't call me. What's up?" I said, dropping my head onto my hand. She pursed her lips in response.

"Why are you doing this?" I rolled my eyes. Of course, she was going to jump right into the Zane conversation. Ever since the marriage, my relationship with my mother had become rockier than usual. 

When my dad was still alive, my mother was my best friend, someone who I shared everything with. Things changed after she met Phil, a successful entrepreneur in the makeup industry. Hell. Everything changed after she met Phil.

"I don't really want to do this right now," I said, leaning my head against the armchair. An involuntary sigh escaped my lips at the thought of the 'Zane conversation'.

"Sweetie, I'm just trying to understand this," she said while waving her hand in front of her face. Then my mother leaned forward and wrapped her hand around mine. "To understand you." Her touch felt foreign to me, so unfamiliar that I pulled away from her grasp.

"You are very well aware why I did this. I didn't do this to hurt you or anyone." My eyes found hers. She looked away.

"You always had such a fiery personality. You always stood up for yourself in the past. This doesn't seem like something that you would do," she muttered, wringing her hands together. Her words hung in the air, floating around us before I mentally swept them away.

I snorted. "I love it when you tell me about myself. It's hilarious, really."

"Sarah," she warned, giving me a pointed look.

"Mom, please. I don't really want to talk about this right now," I whispered, wrapping my arms around myself. My voice was softer now that some of the anger had passed. "I did this for Kat. She meant something to me, mom. I want to do this for her."

"You do realize that you're not obligated to do this," she said as she grabbed my hand again. Again, I pulled it away. "Zane is an adult who can take care of himself." This was something that I had no doubts about. The guy had been on his own since he was 17. He could definitely take care of himself.

"He's not too bad. He treats me with respect and gives me space," I spat, crossing my arms across my chest and glaring at her. She sighed before pulling her purse onto her lap. Just like my dad, I was stubborn and wasn't going to back down.

"Fine. You're 22 years old and are capable of making your own decisions," she said with a wave of her hand. Sometimes, only sometimes, I wished that my mother had put up more of a fight against the marriage. I would never admit this to her, of course, but still. "I was actually here to give you something."

From her purse, she took out a white envelope. In it, was a wedding invite. My hands shook when I realized that it was an invitation to my mother's wedding. She was planning to marry Phil. "Are you serious?" I screeched with my mouth agape.

Phil was a sleazy man with a round belly and a bald head. He was also the man my mother had an affair with when I was 13 years old. When my dad found out about the affair, he broke down. He passed away a few days later from a heart attack. My dad died from literal heartbreak.

"I know you miss your dad, honey. I do too. But we deserve to be happy." Her voice was low.

"I can't believe you're going to marry that man. I won't be attending your wedding." My head was spinning and I could feel tears at the back of my throat. She didn't miss dad. She never even loved him enough to miss him.

"Sarah. This is important to me," she whispered, her eyes boring into mine. Standing up, I crossed my arms and glared down at her. Red, hot rage swept over me again at that moment. It was so intense that I wanted to punch something.

"My graduation was important to me, my ballet recital was important to me, my wisdom teeth removal was important to me. You never came to any one of those things." I was shouting. There were tears running down my cheeks and spit flying out from my mouth. Narrowing my eyes, I said, "you know who did come to all that?" She didn't respond. "Kat. Kat was there for me when I needed her."

"Sarah, please," she muttered, standing up from the couch and reaching out for me.

"I don't care how important this is to you. I'm not coming," I yelled, taking a step back from her. My mother's body stiffened as she attempted to maintain her composure. Her mouth was a straight line but her eyes were challenging me.

"You ungrateful, selfish little prick! I let you live with me for the last four years. I fed you and bought you whatever the hell you wanted. I should have kicked you out as soon as you hit 18," she screamed back, advancing towards me like she was going to hit me.

"Trust me, you didn't do me any favours by letting me live with you." Rolling my eyes, I headed towards my room, hoping to ignore any further verbal onslaught. My relationship with my mother turned sour after my dad died. We would try to have civil conversations but they would always end with us fighting.

It was exhausting.

"I continued to pay that nanny even though you outgrew her and this is how you are choosing to repay me?" Mother had always been jealous of Kat, there was no doubt about that.

Spinning around to face her, I replied, "don't you dare say a word against Kat." With my finger in the air, I continued to stare her down, hoping that she would be the one to back down this time. She remained quiet for a long time. There were tears on my cheeks but my mother's face was almost stone-like.

When I was younger and we were still on good terms, she would tell me that a woman should always wear a mask and never reveal her true emotions. Sometimes her mask would slip when her anger got the better of her. "We're done here. Close the door on your way out." I didn't wait for her to respond.