Free Give Up On Me by Tressie Lockwood

stupidity.”
    “Shut your mouth,” Janae almost shouted. Several heads turned their way, and she tried to get a hold of her anger. “You can talk down to me all you want. I don’t care because I know my worth. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to trash talk Matt when he’s not even here to defend himself. Is this how you treat him, how he’s been thought of between the two of you all his life?”
    “You don’t know anything about us,” Kyler said.
    “Oh, I know plenty, more than I want to know. I know he’s better off without you two assholes. Yeah, don’t look shocked. You’re assholes. Do you want me to repeat it? We don’t need you. I’m not giving up Matt even if he’s dirt poor. You’ve proven to me that you two don’t know him. He’s sweet and perfect and a great person who doesn’t look down on anybody. I can’t even imagine how he turned out so good when you two are so disgusting.”
    “You—” Margaret began.
    “Shut the hell up! Nobody wants your damn money, and you’re showing how insecure you really are by trying to control Matt. Are you scared he won’t love you if he loves me? Well too bad. I would never ask him not to see you, even after we’re married.”
    Two sets of eyes bugged at her mention of marriage. She would have laughed if she weren’t so angry. In fact, she’d gone off more than she intended tonight.
    “Like I said, we don’t need you, and even if Matt and I have to eat Oodles of Noodles every day for the rest of our lives, he would be a lot better off than with a couple of backstabbing family members like you. Good night.”
    Janae scraped her chair away from the table and stood.
    “You’re making a mistake.” Margaret didn’t look at her. Her bony lined hand trembled as it gripped her wine glass. “Matt’s inheritance isn’t my only card.”
    “Whatever, Grandma.”
    Janae left them sitting there and stormed out of the restaurant. Later, as she drove home she wondered if she had gone too far. Her dad had raised her to respect her elders but she had called Margaret an asshole and told the woman to shut up. Thinking about it, Janae pressed a hand to her mouth. She burst out laughing.
    “Oh man, I let her have it.”
    She could have done much worse but imagined Kyler and Margaret thought what she said was bad enough. They probably figured they were right about her from the way she behaved, but she didn’t care. She was confident about Matt’s love.
    “He won’t leave me, even if I did call his Nana an asshole. If I called her a bitch maybe, but not asshole.”
    She cracked up again and kept snickering all the way home.

Chapter Nine
    F or all the fun Janae had cursing out Kyler and Margaret, she paid for it the next morning when she woke up sick as a dog. Vomiting until it seemed like her stomach touched her back, she hugged the toilet bowl for the better part of an hour.
    At last, she felt like she could take a breath without retching and climbed shakily to her feet. The bathroom swayed around her for a minute, but she shut her eyes and waited it out. Pressing a hand to her head and then to her painful stomach, she whimpered.
    “I must not have eaten enough before I had that drink. Either that or those fools stressed me out more than I thought.”
    She looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen as if she’d been crying. Just great. All she needed was for her dad to start worrying about her health. Well, it was nothing a few eye drops and a hot shower couldn’t take care of.
    After she was dressed, she tried to make herself the breakfast she ate on most mornings—a sausage and egg toasted mcmuffin. The scent of the greasy sausage almost sent her back to the bathroom, so she dumped everything in the trash.
    In the car, she dialed Monique who answered on the first ring. “Hey, Monique. Is my dad in yet? I just tried his phone, and he’s not answering.”
    “Good morning, Janae. He’s in, but…”
    Janae frowned. “But