Chapter 4 - The Bloodied Gala
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I couldn't stomach another second of the charade. I pushed my chair back, the wooden legs scraping loudly against the polished floor, and turned toward the exit. I just wanted to leave, to drive back to New Haven and prepare for my own life.
But my mother, who had an unnatural radar for my movements, intercepted me in the grand foyer just outside the ballroom doors.
"Where exactly do you think you're going?" she hissed, her manicured fingers grabbing my arm with surprising, painful force.
"Home, Mother. I have my own graduation to prepare for," I said coldly, trying to pull away.
"You are not leaving," she snapped, stepping in front of the glass doors. "You are embarrassing your sister by sneaking out. You haven't even gone up to the stage to congratulate her!"
"Congratulate her for what?" I asked, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "A six-month certificate? You spent eighty-five thousand dollars on this circus while I starved for six years to get through Yale. Let go of my arm."
"How dare you bring up money today!" she spat, her face twisting into a mask of pure, ugly rage. "You have always been so utterly selfish, Catherine!"
"I'm selfish?" I laughed, a harsh, bitter sound.
"You don't belong here, you ungrateful mistake!" she screamed.
Before I could even process the horrific words, her hand lashed out. It wasn't a slap. She clawed at my face, her sharp, diamond-encrusted acrylic nails digging violently into my cheek. I gasped in shock, stumbling backward.
A sharp, stinging pain erupted across my face. I raised my hand to my cheek and pulled it away. My fingers were slick with bright red blood. A drop fell, landing perfectly on the bodice of my cheap black dress.
A few late-arriving guests in the foyer stopped and gasped, staring at us in horror.
My mother looked at my bleeding face, her chest heaving, but she didn't apologize. She just smoothed her designer gown.
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"Go," she sneered. "Get out of my sight."
I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I just pulled a napkin from a nearby cocktail table, pressed it to my bleeding face, and walked out the door. They thought bleeding me out at her eighty-five-thousand-dollar party would finally break me, but my Yale-architect mind was already drafting the perfect blueprint for their absolute, total destruction.
