I wasn’t delighted she stood up for me, though. Mum is never on my side. She’s on the side of the press and her image. If the great Jeanine Reed is known to have a violent daughter, it’d fuck up her upcoming exhibition.

That’s why she gave it her all in the principal’s office and even offered the school tickets to her exclusive pre-show that costs tens of thousands of pounds. A form of donation, she said.

Then she talked to her agent on the way home, sparing me a glare every time I breathed wrong.

Now that we’re all alone, she’ll tell me not to pull her name down, that she didn’t spend years slaving in her studio to have a brat like me ruin her first exhibition in two years. She’s been in a slump and has finally found her muse again.

Quick fact about my mum – she’d rather kill me and Kir and the whole world as long as she has her precious muse.

I steady myself at the entrance, waiting for the onslaught of her words, secretly happy Kir is spending the night with his friend Henry and won’t witness this ugly scene.

Mum sighs and shakes her head, causing the perfect strands to move in an elegant kind of way. “Why do you have to be a disappointment, Kimberly?”

And with that, she retreats upstairs, oblivious to the blood trail she’s left behind.

It’s as if she stabbed me with a pointy knife and is taking the weapon of crime with her, letting the blood drip from it with each of her steps.

But this blood is different. It’s the type that you can never wash off nor sew the flesh back together.

My chin trembles, but I inhale deeply and slowly go to my room.

“What would you like for dinner?” Mari asks me on my way up.

“Nothing.” My voice is dead as I get past her. “Absolutely nothing.”

The moment I’m in my room, I lock it and curl into bed, wrapping the sheet around me until my own breaths nearly suffocate me.

It’s dark in here, serene almost.

The fog won’t be able to get inside. It can’t. If it does after what Mum said, I don’t know what to do.

Kir isn’t even here to stop me.

Maybe I should go get him. I can kidnap him from Henry’s house or I can at least see his puppy eyes and hug him to recharge.

Without the warmth he emanates, I’m left in a cold, desolate space of my own making.

Tendrils of that fog seep under the sheet and surround me in a tight hold. I clutch the cover harder, needing the camouflage it provides.

No, no, no…

It’s not supposed to come in under the cover. It’s supposed to stay the hell away.

My wrist scar tingles and my nose does, too. There’s this overwhelming urge to cry, but I can’t. No tears would come out, even if I let them loose. Unlike common belief, there’s no relief in letting go and crying.

At least not for me.

Whenever I cry, that fog crawls faster under my skin and the next thing I know, it’s invading my brain and occupying my thoughts. It turns from a need to an impulse, and without a strong presence like Kir’s to stop me, I just give in to it and let go.

Completely. Thoroughly.

I’d be sitting in the bathtub and making a step I can never take back.

I blink the tears away and try to think of bright thoughts.

That’s what my shrink used to say. Bright thoughts.

As if I can conjure them and produce them and somehow tuck them for the bad days. The days where everything disappears and everything hurts – the breaths I take, the contact of the sheet against my skin, the tingling of my veins underneath the scar, demanding release, the tears that want to come out and play with the fog.

All of it.

Every fucking thing.

“Help…” I murmur in a small, haunted voice. “Someone help me.”

No one will hear me. I know they won’t, because even though therapy tells me it’s good to admit I need help, they also said I need to ask it from people.

And I’ll never do that.

People just don’t care. And if they did, they’d merely give me those pity looks that make me want to crawl to someplace no one can find me.

If my own mother, the woman who brought me into this world, doesn’t care, why would anyone else?

My phone vibrates and I startle, nearly falling off the bed.

I’m about to silence it and go back to my little halo, aka a one-person party of self-pity, when I make out the name on the caller ID.

Dad.

I wince, staring at the flashing phone in the dark. Did the school call him, too? He’s not like Mum. If he knows, he’ll sit me down and discuss my therapy options because he recognises I wouldn’t hit someone for no reason, it’s an accumulation of pent-up frustration and blah freaking blah.

I can almost hear the therapist say those words, and that’s why I don’t like them.

Dad thinks therapy is the only solution, but there’s also a simple one he could’ve made nineteen years ago – he shouldn’t have participated in my creation.

He’s a brilliant man and Mum is a successful woman. I shouldn’t have been their daughter.

I don’t pick up. If I do, I’ll start crying, and that’s a no-go right now. Besides, I’m unable to speak when the fog is wrapping its ghostly fingers around my throat like a noose.

If I break down on the phone, Dad will return on the next plane and I’ll have to live with being a disappointment again.

Soon after the call ends, my screen lights with a text from him.

It’s a long one. Dad is as eloquent as anyone can get, even with his texts.

Dad: Hey, Angel. If you’re studying, I don’t want to bother you, but I wanted to check in and see how you’re doing. I’m sorry my calls were sparse yesterday and today. I’ve been working on an important project that will bore you to death if I talk about it. Anyway, I received a call from school, and I’m upset about what happened from the other girl. I’m sure you had your reasons, and you’ll tell me about them one day. It pains me to think you’ve been hurt in any way. Kiss Kirian for me. Daddy loves you both and can’t wait to come back and see you. We’ll go on that family holiday Kir has been asking for. Stay safe, Angel.

A drop of moisture falls on my phone screen as I finish reading the text. I wipe the tear away so the others don’t follow.

Damn it, Dad. Why did you have to put it that way?

Every time he calls me his angel, I’m almost tempted to believe it, to think that I’m someone’s angel, that someone actually feels pain when I’m hurt.

Kimberly: I love you, too, Dad, and I miss you so much.

I erase the text before hitting send. If I do, he’ll just call me, and I don’t have the physical or mental energy to deal with those emotions right now.

So I check the other texts instead.

Ronan: Kimmy!

Ronan: Kim-my.

Ronan: Pay attention to me, la merde.

Ronan: I’m hurt, I’m going to cry in a corner.

I smile. He stayed by my side until Mum came earlier. I have a feeling it was his testimony against Veronica that saved me from suspension. I’m sure the others didn’t testify in my favour.

Kim: You don’t cry.

The reply is immediate.

Ronan: I do now. So, party at my place?

Usually, I would be all over that because the letting go, the drinking and dancing, takes my mind away from the fog.