Free Sins of the Flesh (Exposed Series Book 1) by Hazel Kelly Page A

swamp.
    “Do you think I’m an idiot, Kate?” Her eyes were sad and her
expression was pathetic. I liked it better when she was angry.
    “No. Of course not.”
    “So why do you lie to me like this? About everything?”
    “I don’t lie to you about everything.” 
    “Do you understand how much trouble you could’ve gotten into if
the school had searched your car? Or if you’d been pulled over?”
    I nodded, but all I could think about was getting her out of my
room.
    “It just- you’re smarter than this.” She pulled one leg up onto
the bed and tucked it underneath her.
    “I know, Mom. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”  
    “Can you even hear yourself? Do you know how many times you’ve
told me that?” She laid the vodka bottle on the bed so she could talk with her
hands. “How long do you expect me to keep believing that it’s your friends that smoke and that you’d never drink and drive?”
    I shrugged.
    “I just don’t understand how you can be so reckless.”
    I pursed my lips.
    “If you were in my situation, what would you do?” Her eyes
bounced back and forth between mine. “What would you do if your daughter was acting
this way?”
    I swallowed. “I don’t know, Mom.” I pulled my towel up and held
my hands over my chest. “I know I drink a little… but it’s not like I’m not a total screw up. It’s not like I’m on drugs .” Unless you consider food a
drug.
    She shook her head. “This-” She held up the bottle. “This is too
much.” She lowered it back down again.
    I wanted to tell her it wasn’t a cry for help and that I would
think of the perfect way for her to punish me if she would just get out of my room.
    But then she did the one thing I didn’t want her to do more than
anything. She sniffed the air, wrinkled her nose, and looked at me.
    “What’s that smell?”
    I just stared at her.
    Her eyes got big and her eyebrows rose to make room for them.
“Well?”
    “I told you I had an upset stomach.”
    She cocked her head. “What kind of upset?”
    “I think I just ate something that didn’t agree with me.”
    She furrowed her brow. “You don’t think it was my lasagna, do
you? I made it the same way I always do.”
    “No. It must have been something else.”
    “Did you get sick?”
    “Just a little,” I said. “I feel fine now.”
    She squinted at me, her eyes narrowing on me like laser beams.
    I knew the fact that she was there to confront me about all the
lies I’d been telling her lately wasn’t going to work in my favor. And it
didn’t help that the weird smell she detected didn’t smell like crap. Or even
“a little sick.”
    She rose to her feet without saying anything, leaving the empty
vodka bottle on the bed. Then, as if in slow motion, I watched her head towards
the bathroom door.
    I stepped in front of her. “You don’t want to go in there. It’s
kind of gross. I’m sure the fan will sort it out.”
    “Move, please.”
    My feet froze and I dropped my head.
    She stepped around me and slid the bathroom door open.
    I stopped breathing and listened to her walk into the bathroom.
I heard her lift the lid on the toilet. When I turned around, she was staring
into the bowl.
    As soon as I realized that my darkest secret was exposed, my
eyes began to water. It felt like she was looking at all my pain all at once.
Like she was staring at my most festering wound.
    She turned her head towards me, her whole face drooping like she’d
been punched in the stomach. “Oh Kate.”
    I opened my mouth to speak, but I just burst into tears.
    I fell to my knees and put my face in my hands. Then I curled forward
into the fetal position and shook with every sob.
    I remember seeing my Mom’s knees drop down beside me. I remember
how I collapsed against her when she pulled me into her arms, how she held me
tight and let me soak her shirt with my tears.
    It felt like I might cry forever.
    And all the while she smoothed my hair against my head, shushed
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