Discipline by Stella Rhys Page B

startled. “But it’s true.”
    “The spa will turn it around for us.
Everyone’s already talking about it. They’re very excited.”
    My stomach churned as I felt myself about to
spill. “But… what if you can’t find the money for the spa?” I
asked, mouthing thank you to Adriana as she detected a
serious topic and hushed everyone, herding them to the other end of
the bar. “You can’t rely on Ben anymore, Mom. He and I broke
up.”
    There. It was out.
    I waited for her to say something. Since it
was silent on the other end, I continued. “We broke up more than a
month ago. He proposed and I said no so he kicked me out that night
and I’ve been living with Kelsey ever since. And I’m happier this
way, Mom. You don’t know what he was really like. I was depressed
with him.” The words were pouring out now, as if I’d opened a
floodgate. “I stayed with him for all the wrong reasons. I thought
we needed him. As a family. But I promise you, we don’t, Mom, so
please don’t worry. I’m going to take care of myself. But that
means staying at Todos instead of doing intern work at the gallery
because I make two hundred dollars every night and over three
hundred on weekends, sometimes four if we have a private party. I
can save extra for any kind of emergency, like when you guys have
trouble paying bills. Okay? Just please, please stop thinking about
Ben like he’s some savior for us because he’s not and I won’t let
him be. Everything he offers or gives is at a price. You just don’t
know it yet.”
    It took a few seconds for me to hear
anything from the other end but finally, there was the sound of
Mom’s jagged breathing.
    “You are engaged to him, Nina. That
ring. You can’t be broken up.”
    God. I fought against the lump forming in my
throat.
    “ Mom . We are not engaged and you
wouldn’t want me to be with him if you knew what he’d put me
through.” I felt the lump rise and immediately, my feet walked me
away from the others and into the kitchen, in case there were
tears. “He never let me see my friends, Mom. He turned me against
anyone close to me because he knew they’d eventually tell me that
our relationship wasn’t normal. He treated me like he owned me. And
I was an idiot because I let him. I stayed home if I wasn’t with
him because he got upset if he didn’t know what I was doing. I did
whatever he wanted, how he wanted, when he wanted. I didn’t know
how else I should act because after awhile, I did feel
indebted to him. Everything I owned or knew belonged to him. I was
his property, Mom. You can’t possibly approve of that.”
    Standing in the middle of the kitchen,
staring at the steel racks of sparkling, white dishes, I waited for
her response. For my dilemma to be officially over. I heard her
sigh on the other end, which for some reason helped my shoulders
relax.
    But then I heard her words.
    “You need to think this over, Nina. You made
a big mistake.”
    And with that, she hung up.

    ~

    By the time it was a little past 1AM, I was
flat out drunk.
    I hadn’t planned on being hammered, but
after the phone call with Mom, I’d sucked down two straight
concoctions that Adriana had thrown together, both of which were
more tequila than anything else. Then, for refusing to let Harry do
a body shot off my stomach, I faced a penalty improvised by Adriana
— two shots and a dance solo on the bar top, for which she played
old school Destiny’s Child. To turn the punishment around on her, I
proceeded to dance like a circus clown, doing a silly, borderline
creepy little jig while flailing my arms about. Harry called it the
hands down sexiest thing he’d ever witnessed.
    By 2AM, despite the fact that none of us
could walk in straight lines, we were on the rooftop of the bar
next door. The city lights were a colorful blur of lines in my
vision, probably because my head kept swaying from side to
side.
    And I was somehow shoeless, my Converse
sneakers nowhere in sight. The case was