Chapter 10: Chapter Ten
Iris:
One minute, I was thinking of how I could manage and escape Cirdan, he was glaring at me and the door, I was thinking my chances of escaping was minimal, the next minute, a woman who I had not seen since I was two was gliding into the room, announcing to everybody what I tried so hard to keep hidden.
Come to mother, she said, I wanted to scoff and roll my eyes, but I couldn’t because my father trained me with more decorum than that. I knew better than to air my family dirty laundry outside.
Come to mother, she said, she was waiting patiently with her arms extended. I couldn’t very well not go to her, I had to pretend that I was at least a little happens to see her in front of others. I didn’t know what she was looking for here, but she needed to leave before more damage than she had already caused.
“Hello mother.” I said in a low tone as I packed my things into my bag and moved to her. I hugged her and just like the greeting, the hug was stiff and strange with her.
“I have missed you dearly.” She said into my hair and my muscles tightened more.
She did not know me enough to miss me, we needed to leave and have this reunion in a place where I could comfortably remove any delusions she has of us being one happy family.
“I did also. Can we have this in private?” I asked.
“Of course, let’s go to my office.” The Principal stepped in, and I smiled my thanks at him even as he helped me with my bag.
I ignored the looks from my classmates, this could still be salvaged. And I could tell ‘mother’ my mind once we were in a place with more privacy.
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When we got to the principal office, she was still acting like the doting, caring mother that she clearly was not, and I was irritated and feeling strange. I had been feeling strange since she hugged me. No that is not right. The feeling of being strange started when I started to avoid Cirdan. My body refused to accept that he was really too good and Viana’s own since she hugged him full on. That was something that I had not seen someone else does. And for her to have the mind to do it. It meant that she had the right to at one certain time. That was enough for me to draw my conclusions before I left that cafeteria as fast as I could even hearing Cirdan shout at Viana could not change my mind. It was like applying medicine to the dead.
Just like how the person who was holding my hand was doing.
Only in her case, the feelings are not just dead but buried and time has decomposed it to the extent that there are no bones left to trace it has once existed.
That was how my feelings towards my mother were. I yanked my hand from hers as we walked but she glanced at me but did not say anything, she could attribute that move to the fact that we were in a place that was rapidly filling with students, people who recognized her and it was a last-ditch effort by me to maintain my low profile.
I was right in guessing what she was thinking because as soon as we passed where the students were, she rolled her eyes. “You do know that they would hear it from your classmates in a few minutes by the time we are done in the principal’s office, the whole school will be well aware of your relationship with me.”
“I am trying to limit that as much as possible and also, I didn’t want to add to the folder for gossip which they already had.” I returned; my face could not even form a smile at her.
When we got to the office, she moved towards me as if she wanted to hug me again, but I shifted away from her as my voice rang out with anger fully visible.
“Don’t ever come near me to hug me ever again.” I thundered, my face which was looking much like hers, to my dismay, was red in anger.
All I could keep thinking was how dare her. How dare she act like we were a fully functional family when she abandoned me as a baby? I grew up with a warped guilty sense, blaming myself for her leaving me when I was two!
No child deserves to have that on their conscience. Luckily, my father noticed on time, and he put a stop to it and his words were right. Parents are the ones who have to prove their selves to their children if they want to be called by that title parents not the opposite. It was not really my fault why she left. It has been and it always will be because she is a selfish bitch, even my birth was as a result of her selfishness.
And for her to come back and act like I would be glad to have a mother now, that was the height of it all.
“I don’t understand Darling…” She started.
“I have a name, granted it was one you gave me but I rather bare to answer that from you than to hear you calling me endearments, endearments that you never meant.” I stated.
“I always mean my words.” She folded her arms across her chest, her stance was one of someone who was going to wait out the temper tantrum of an errant child.
And that got even more on my nerves than she already has. “I don’t care if you always mean your words, I cannot trust a woman who I don’t even remember until she hugged me. If you could abandon me at two then I don’t want you in my life.”
I watched as her smile died and something more sinister slid into her expression before she could blink it out. “You seem to think you have a choice Iristendale. I brought you into this world so...”
“So what? You want to take me out of it.” I scoffed. “What about your hard work into having the perfect heir.”
“Well, when the heir is not perfect, what do you expect me to do?” She drawled and her words hurt me deeply. All my life I have trained to be the best I could, and I honestly think that I am and even with me trying, she still thought I was not perfect.
Taking in a deep breath, a answered her as calmly as possible. “The heir is perfect but the woman she comes out from who chose the best bloodlines for her daughter made her child anything other than perfect towards her when she abandoned the daughter.”
“And her throwing a bloody tantrum is not the way any perfect princess would do.” She raised her voice.
Her words made it all clear. “So that was the reason why you came to visit me in school. Forcing my hand to make it look like we were close was to manipulate me into keeping quiet and not reacting about your actions. Like you being here right now solves everything.” When she did not reply, I yelled out. “Is that it?”
“And it should have worked if your father raised you properly.” She muttered lowly but I could still very well hear her.
“And what happened to you raising me…” I asked.
“I gave birth to you, that should be enough for you. Don’t forget that I could easily have the spell you to do my bidding when I did, and that spell would still be active today. It would have frankly saved me from a lot of the attitude you are throwing my way,” she replied.
My mouth gaped open, not just at her audacity but rather at everything. She was unfeeling, did not seem to even know that she was wrong on so many accounts.
“Did you call my father?” I turned to the principal, fully aware that I was going to go crazy or attack the woman who regard herself as my mother if she continued talking.
“No, Your highness, not yet.” The principal answered flustered.
“Get him here right now.” I ordered before I turned and marched into the inner office of the principal and locked myself there. My mother started banging on the door.
“Running away from confrontation, real matured behavior coming from the perfect heir.” She sneered.
“I am perfect.” I yelled at her. “You are not only the flawed one but also crazy and I won’t entertain you by giving you what you want anymore when you clearly lost the right years ago when you left me.”
“You are a princess, stop holding on to the past, if all royals did that, do you think that we would be where we are today, we would still be fighting among ourselves…” She started but I started singing out loud just to be spiteful and to show her I couldn’t hear her.
And I did this while holding in my tears. My life was certainly not perfect, the boy I liked seemed to be in a relationship and the woman who was supposed to love me… never did and had always proved that to me. I just didn’t pay attention.