My Mother Is Faking Everything

A line of glowing text drifted across my vision, shimmering like a glitch in the air: Shes been through three lifetimes and she still hasnt realized her mother is faking the illness.

I froze.

Today was the morning of the National Merit Finalsthe single most important day of my academic life. And yet, here I was, locked in my own bedroom. My mother was having another "episode." She claimed her prosopagnosiaher face blindnesshad flared up again. She screamed that I wasn't her daughter; she claimed I was her mother-in-law, the woman who had tormented her for years.

"I won't let you out to hurt me again!" she shrieked through the heavy wood of the door. "Stay in there, you old hag!"

I hammered on the door, my voice cracking. "Mom, its me! Its Julie! I have to leave for the exam right now. Please, Mom, look at me!"

But she just kept muttering to herself, a rhythmic, terrifying chant about how she had to protect herself.

Desperation clawed at my throat. I looked at the third-story window, actually considering the jump. It wouldn't be the first time shed done this. Years ago, on the day of my Ivy League prep camp interview, shed caught me at the door. That time, shed "mistaken" me for my fathers mistress. Shed lunged at me, tearing at my blazer, screaming that I was a home-wrecker. Shed dragged me by my hair, her sharp, manicured nails digging into my cheeks, leaving two deep scars that took months to fade.

Id always forgiven her. Because she was sick. Because when the "episodes" passed, she would collapse in tears, cradling me and whispering, "Im so sorry, baby. Mommy is so sorry she breaks down when you need her most..."

I stood in the center of my room, my heart hammering against my ribs.

Faking?

It couldn't be.

Ever since my father left, Linda had been fragile, drifting in and out of reality. But that text... it was still there, floating in the air like a live social media feed only I could see. I shook my head violently, trying to clear the hallucination. Stress. It had to be the stress.

I looked up, and the text scrolled faster.

[Its already 7:30. At this rate, shes just going to jump again. What a waste.]

[The first two times she jumped, she hit the pruned hedges downstairs. Ended up paralyzed from the waist down. Spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair.]

I lurched back from the window as if the glass had turned red-hot.

I couldn't jump. I couldn't risk the hedges. I turned back to the door, my palms bleeding from where Id bitten them.

"Mom! Its the finals! I am not Grandma! Youre confused!" I screamed. "I spent a whole extra year studying for this after the 'accident' last year. Open the door!"

The text accelerated into a blur.

[Why is she still begging? Is she serious?]

[Lindas acting is top-tier. If I didn't have the bird's-eye view, Id be fooled too.]

[She doesn't even know that the 'accident' last yeargetting stuck in the elevator for twenty-four hourswas Lindas handiwork.]

[Think about it, Julie. Who gets face blindness only during life-changing moments? Who mistakes their own daughter for a mistress? Only a naive kid would buy this.]

My hand, raised to strike the door again, went limp.

The hair on my arms stood up.

The elevator. Last year.

I had missed the exams because I was trapped in a metal box between the fourth and fifth floors of our building. Id screamed until my throat bled, but no one came.

[Linda saw the 'Out of Order' sign. She tore it off and watched the elevator doors close on her daughter. She heard her screaming and just... went to get a latte.]

[And when she was finally 'rescued,' Linda just said shed been at her sisters place. Total lie.]

The world seemed to tilt. I remembered the maintenance mans face when the firefighters finally pried the doors open. He had been muttering, "I know I taped the warning sign right there..."

Id thought I was just unlucky.

A cold, oily sensation washed over me.

I remembered when my father offered to pay for me to study in London. Linda had thrown a fit, saying she couldn't bear to be apart from me. I thought it was love.

I let out a sharp, jagged laugh.

It wasn't love. It was a cage. She didn't want me to have a future. She wanted me right here, under her thumb, broken.

I looked at the clock. 07:50.

The exam started in seventy minutes. The testing center was across town.

I backed up to the far wall, my eyes fixed on the old mahogany door. I tucked my shoulder, gathered every ounce of rage and betrayal I possessed, and charged.

CRACK.

My shoulder screamed in protest, but I didn't stop.

CRACK.

THUD.

On the third hit, the frame splintered. I burst into the hallway, stumbling into the light.

Linda was standing by the foyer, a look of pure, cold shock crossing her face before she quickly masked it with a mask of trembling terror.

"You!" she gasped, shrinking back. "You old witch! What are you doing out of your room?"

[Look at her. Award-winning performance.]

[Good luck, Julie. Youre dealing with a pro.]

I didn't cry. I didn't scream. I reached up and wiped a stray tear with the back of my hand, my eyes hard as flint. I didn't have time to process the trauma. Not yet.

I ducked back into my room to grab my bag. Id left my ID and my admission ticket right in the center of my desk last night.

The desk was empty.

I tore through my drawers, threw my books on the floor, my heart rate spiking. They were gone. And for the first time, I didn't need a floating text to tell me where they were.

I walked back into the living room. Linda was still cowering in the corner, playing the victim.

"Where are they?" I asked, my voice dangerously low. "My ID. My ticket."

"I don't know what you're talking about, you hag"

"Stop it," I snapped. "The act is over, Linda. If you really thought I was Grandma, why would you steal a high schoolers ID? Does Grandma have a National Merit ticket? Does she?"

Linda froze. The "fear" drained from her face, replaced by a cold, vacuous expression that made her look like a stranger. Then, she let out a dry, mocking snort.

"Well," she said, her voice perfectly normal. "If you're so smart that you figured it out, why don't you go find them yourself?"

My fists clenched so hard my nails drew blood. We lived in a three-bedroom apartment filled with twenty years of clutter. I had sixty minutes. She was playing a game with my life.

The wall clock ticked. 08:00.

I was shaking, a primal urge to scream rising in my chest. Linda didn't care. She sat down on the velvet sofa, picked up the remote, and turned on a morning talk show. She reached for a bowl of almonds and started snacking.

"Don't be so dramatic," she said, eyes on the TV. "I just thought you were looking a little too stressed. Too tense. I wanted to give you a little break. I took the papers, sure."

I took a step toward her. "Where. Are. They."

She popped an almond into her mouth and chewed slowly. "I honestly don't remember where I put them. Somewhere safe."

I grabbed her wrist, my vision tunneling. "Mom! Stop this! This is my life! Just tell me where they are!"

A frantic pounding at the front door broke the tension.

I ran to open it. Standing there, drenched in sweat and looking frantic, was my father.

"Julie? Why aren't you at the center?" Thomas gasped. "Ive been waiting outside the gates since seven. I thought... after last year... I thought something happened."

Seeing him, the dam finally broke. I sobbed, pointing at Linda.

"She took them, Dad! She locked me in my room and hid my ID and my ticket! She won't let me go!"

My fathers face turned a shade of purple Id never seen. He stepped into the room and towered over the sofa.

"Linda! Ive put up with your' episodes' for fifteen years for the sake of our daughter, but this is the line. This is her future! What the hell is wrong with you?"

The moment he attacked, Lindas "calm" evaporated into a screeching fury.

"Oh, here we go! The two of you ganging up on me! After everything Ive sacrificed? I gave up my youth to raise this girl, and all I get is a husband who cheats and a daughter who turns on me!"

"Im going to kill myself! Ill do it right now!"

She made a theatrical dash toward the wall, as if to throw herself against it.

I turned pale and moved to stop her, but my father held me back. He looked at her with a weary, soul-crushing disgust.

"Linda, enough," he said, his voice dropping to a deadly quiet. "You can scream, you can cry, you can play the martyr. I stayed away because I thought you were at least a good mother. I thought that despite our mess, you loved her."

"Well stay," he continued, glancing at the clock. 08:10. "If she misses this, shell stay in-state for college. Shell stay right here with you. Is that what you want? To ruin her just to keep her?"

Linda stopped her histrionics. She sat back down, smoothing her hair.

"If she misses it, she can just retake it next year," she muttered. "Whats the big deal?"

I felt a hollow, aching despair. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to scream until the windows shattered.

My father saw the look on my face. He turned back to Linda, his voice like ice.

"Linda, if Julie doesn't make it to that exam today, the five thousand dollars a month in alimony? Gone. I will burn that money before I give you another cent. Ill tie you up in court for the next ten years. You won't get a dime."

That hit home. Lindas lifestyle was expensivethe designer bags, the daily trips to the spa, the high-end hair salons. She spent money like water, yet somehow my five-hundred-dollar textbook fees were always "too much."

She faltered, her eyes darting around. "I... I really did lose them. I hid them and I don't remember where..."

My knees went weak. I felt like I was falling.

"I didn't do it on purpose!" she whined. "Why is everyone being so mean?"

My father growled, "Don't expect another penny from me."

My phone buzzed in my pocket. It was Mrs. Adler, my honors advisor.

"Julie? Where are you? The doors are opening, and youre the only one not checked in."

I broke down, the words tumbling out through my tears. "Mrs. Adler, I can't find my ID. My mother... theyre gone. I don't know what to do."

I expected a lecture. I expected her to tell me it was over.

Instead, her voice was calm. "Julie, listen to me. Get down here right now. The state changed the regulations this year. We have an on-site verification system for emergency lost documents. As long as I can vouch for your identity and we have your digital record, we can issue a provisional pass. But you have to be here before the final bell."

"Really?" I wiped my eyes, a spark of hope igniting in my chest.

I didn't look at Linda. I grabbed my pens and ran.

When we reached the elevator, I saw the silver doors and felt a phantom sensation of suffocation. I veered toward the stairs.

"The stairs, Dad. Were taking the stairs."

He didn't ask why. He just ran with me.

08:18

We made it to the testing center in record time, my father driving like a man possessed. Mrs. Adler was waiting by the gate.

"Most students don't know about the emergency policy," she whispered as she rushed me toward the administration office. "We don't broadcast it because we don't want kids being careless, but for a student like you? We make it work."

In ten minutes, I had a temporary pass in my hand. Mrs. Adler walked me to the door of the hall.

"Go get 'em, Julie. Show them what you're made of."

I turned to thank her, but a commotion at the security gate stopped me.

My mother was there, breathless, her face contorted.

"Wait! Officer! I need to report something!"

My fathers face fell. I felt a cold dread settle in my stomach.

Linda pointed a trembling finger at me. "Im her mother! I have to tell the truth! Julie is planning to cheat! She has notes hidden in her clothes!"

The crowd of parents waiting outside fell silent. All eyes turned to mejudgmental, suspicious, shocked.

Linda sobbed, her voice carrying across the lawn. "Julie, honey, I love you, but I can't let you do this! Success means nothing if you steal it! Please, give the officers the notes!"

Before I could move, she lunged forward, reaching into the pocket of my hoodie and pulling out a crumpled piece of paper.

"See! Look! These are her cheat sheets!"