"Do you know how embarrassing it is to watch my own mother throw her life away while I have to clean up after her?" She shook her head. "Hell, I don’t even know why I bother. You’re never going to change."
Sarah’s long, retractable tongue flicked out in a lazy, almost mocking gesture before retreating. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you - spare me the goddamn lecture. Y’know, before the Wave, when I was the ‘mom,’ you didn’t give a damn about your grades. But now that you’ve got your shiny new stick up your ass, suddenly academics matter?”
Kimberly exhaled through her nose, slow and controlled, willing herself not to explode. “Because I grew up, Sarah. Maybe you should try it.”
Sarah’s tail lashed against the cabinet with a loud thump. "And what about you, huh? What the hell is this self-imposed martyrdom act? You think cooking shitty meals and making chore charts makes you better than me? You think that just because you grew a dick, you suddenly get to be the man of the house?" Her voice dripped with venom, her fingers curling into fists. How does it feel, being the one stuck at home now, huh?"
Kimberly’s extra set of eyes squeezed shut for a moment before opening again, dark with exhaustion. "It feels like hell," she admitted, voice lower now. "It feels like I'm watching you make every mistake I used to make, and I can't stop it."
"And I get to watch you turn into the stiff-ass woman I used to hate," Sarah fired back. "You're so goddamn miserable, Kimberly! You make rules and schedules and act like some prim little nun, like you can scrub away whatever this did to us, but you can’t! Look at you! And you wanna talk about decency? You’re walking around with a rank dick swinging between your legs and acting like no one can see it bulging through your pants!"
Kimberly recoiled as if struck, but had no time for a rebuttal before her mother slammed her sharp, ebony-brown nails into the table. "I didn’t sign up to be babysat by my own daughter."
Kimberly's jaw clenched. “You do not speak to me like that in this house," she said, her voice low and cold:
“Young woman-”
Sarah threw up her hands. “Oh, that's rich! Fuck off with that ‘young woman’ shit! You are not my mother!" Sarah shrieked, slamming a hand onto the table. The plates jumped. "I was your mother! I was the one who had to fight to put food on this table, to keep you from running off with whatever boy would look at you! I worked my ass off and what did I get? A daughter who spit in my face!"
"I didn’t ask you to work yourself to death for me!" Kimberly roared back. "And you didn’t have to treat me like some burden! You hated me!"
"I’m YOUR FUCKING MOTHER, not your CHILD, Kimberly!”
“No,” Kimberly shot back, “but you’re acting like one.” Her voice trembled. "I'm the only mother who acts her part in this household."
Silence. It wasn’t the first time either had thought it, but it was the first time one had said it aloud. Sarah's mouth curled into a bitter smirk.
Kimberly’s voice trembled, her knuckles white. "You have no idea how much I despise what’s happened to us. I hate this! I hate this!" Her extra arms flung outward. "I hate that I have to be the one keeping this house together while you’re out acting like a goddamn high school dropout! And I hate that I have to look in the mirror every goddamn day and see this!" She gestured downward, her voice cracking into something raw and painful. "I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask to be a freak, to have something that—"
"That what?" Sarah’s eyes gleamed with something cruel, something hurting. "That makes you a goddamn pervert?"
Silence. Thick. Stifling. For the first time in months, since the Fusion Wave, Kimberly’s new motherly composure cracked completely.