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She turns around at the sound of the door, and her eyes light up when she sees me “David!” She exclaims with a wide s to seerown so tall!” She continues, still s for a response

Iher back the way I used to before, in the days when I lived for theabsence, with stories of places they had gone, and parties she’d been to She’d come with her beauty and her exotic adventures, and my life in her absence would fade to dullness

Now I just wish she would leave me alone

She starts to talk about how she missed me, she sounds very sincere, but she can’t haveaway for nearly sixher out

I drop e of my bed While she talks, I study the picture ofhappily at the camera, or at my mother behind the camera Of course, that was back when she was still my mom, not Henry Weber’s socialite wife

She’s still talking to me, but I can’t really hear her I srin behind my father’s handsome one He died when I was six, after a drunk driver ran a red light and crushed his car Almost immediately, my mother married Henry, an idle millionaire whose only desire is to travel and socialize She’s been travelling and socializing with him for nine years

“You’re starting to look so much like your father” My hts, and I turn towards her Her eyes are shiny, like she’s about to cry

I don’t say anything, even though the coh of exasperation at ? Soon she’ll have left for another one of their trips, and o back to normal

She leavesout to a dinner party, and she has to prepare I go downstairs to find Steve, sure that I won’t run into Henry while he’s locked up in histo decide which one of his hundreds of tuxedos to wear Steve lives in an aparth, he relents and teaches me some of his martial arts moves

It’s while I’e that I hear the voices I turn back towards the house, and through their bedroo I’ue a lot Henry’s a jerk I can’t stand him, he can’t stand me, and I have no idea how my mother can stand him

I’m about to turn ahen I see him raise a hand and strike my mother across the face I stand there frozen as she holds a hand to her cheek He turns towards the , and seeing me, walks towards it and abruptly pulls the curtains closed

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