Stay With Me (The Montgomery Brothers) by Samantha Chase Page A

a grown woman and it’s time that you remembered that.”
    They were silent for long moments.  Finally Barbara Micelli cleared her throat.  “Well, I guess that sums it all up, doesn’t it?  If that’s what you feel you have to do, then fine; stay in North Carolina for however long you like.  Just don’t expect to lean on me when you come home and have no job.  As you pointed out you’re a grown woman; I won’t be supporting you.”
    Gina rolled her eyes and took another long drink of wine.  “I don’t believe I ever asked you to, but thanks for the reminder.”  She pulled her now-cooled dinner from the microwave and looked at it with disgust.  “Look, let’s just take some time to cool down.  I’ll call you next week, okay?”
    For a minute, Gina didn’t think her mother was even going to respond.  Finally she said, “That’s fine.  We’ll talk then.”  Gina wished her mother a good night and then hung up.  Carefully, she placed her phone down on the cool granite counter top and then walked to the center of the room and screamed.  She screamed until she couldn’t breathe and then she took a deep breath and screamed again.  Luckily no one lived close by or they’d probably be calling the police but right now that was the least of her problems.
    She dropped to her knees and did her best to catch her breath.  Why?  Why did her mother have to make everything so complicated and why did Gina allow it for so long?  It felt so good to get those things off of her chest tonight but now she worried about how long she would be punished for it.  For too many years
,
Gina sat back and let her mother make all of her decisions because it was easier than arguing with her; but now that she’d had a little taste of freedom, she knew that there was no way she could return to that way of living.
    Rising to her feet, Gina went back to the kitchen and bypassed her dinner and instead poured herself another glass of wine.  With a grimace she noticed that once her glass was full, the bottle was empty.  Walking over to the refrigerator, she pulled out another bottle. 
    The wine was making her more than a little tipsy and she couldn’t help but sway as she made her way to the stereo to turn the music back on.  “Ooo…classic rock,” she said with a giggle and began to sing along to Elton John’s Crocodile Rock .  “Hear that, Mom?” she called out into the room.  “I’ve got the music on way too loud and it’s that rock n roll that you hate.”  That made her break out into a fit of giggles.  Then, in another act of rebellion, she turned on the TV at the same time and the play button on the DVD player and smiled at the beginning of “Say Anything.”
    She danced her way across the room singing off key.  A look around the room a little too quickly made her dizzy.  “I really should eat something,” she mumbled but her dinner was no longer what she wanted.  Rummaging through the cabinets she found a pack of Oreos and grabbed a few and sighed with how good they tasted.  “And I’m not eating a balanced diet either, how about that?”
    It didn’t take long for her to realize that Oreos and wine were not a good combination and put the last of her cookies down on the counter and went back to refill her glass.  “I’m an adult, dammit!  It’s my life and from now on, I am going to do what I want.  No one is going to tell me what to do, no one is going to bully me into being where I don’t want to be and if I want to have wine for dinner, then I damn-well will!”  She slammed the glass down on the counter and it shattered.
    Gina cursed and made a feeble attempt to clean it up.  The shards of glass cut her finger and she winced from the pain.  Her finger was bleeding and she carefully walked over to the sink to rinse it out.  Once that task was complete she wrapped her finger with a paper towel and was going to inspect how deep the wound was but she was distracted when she found