6. Family Values

Bree's P.O.V.

For the first time since we've met, the dynamic between us is completely shifted, once I walk into the room.

Em's energy is not the same, he's not smug at all.

More like hostile.

And cold.

The tension in the room is thick, and the moment I enter the room, his first words to me are, "Get the fuck out, Bree I ain't got no time for no fake bitches."

I sigh and close the door behind me, leaning against it.

"What is your deal now, Marshall?" I ask him, but studying his face, but those eyes of his, they are just as hard to read as always. Sitting all manspread on the edge of his bed, those eyes burn into mine, and this time I do detect very intense feelings.

Anger.

And resentment.

"Just ain't like no lying bitches is all," he shrugs.

And that does it.

Finally pushing away from the door, I walk up to him and stand over him. He lifts his face up and looks up at me with a contemptuous smirk.

"What exactly did a lie about, boy?" I ask him, feeling furious on the inside. He continues to have this effect on me, no matter how much I try to ignore him, bringing out all kinds of string emotions out of me, most of them being annoyance.

"Nobody's family is that perfect, Bree," Marshall laughs then, and then he begins to mock what I'm sure he thinks my voice sounds like. "'We didn't have much, but my parents loved me. They were the best parents in the world, and we was a happy family, the happiest in the world!!'" He draws out in a fake high pitched voice, then smirks. "Fuck outta here," he waves me off, voice returning to his normal tone. "You are so full of shit, baby girl. Cause ain't no chick ends up as fucked in the head as you are if she came from a happy wholesome home you described in that whack ass therapy session."

At his words, I feel a different sort of anger rising within me. Honestly? I don't have too many happy memories with my parents, but the ones that I do have, they mean the world to me. And to have someone doubt them...

"Fuck you, Em. Just cause your own momma used to neglect you and abuse drugs while you were a baby and your daddy abandoned you, doesn't mean that everybody else's family is like that, okay? None of what I was saying was a lie!!" I fire back at him, immediately backing up once he suddenly bolts up from the edge of the bed and stands towering over me.

His face is beet red, and he's looking like he wants to hit me right now.

That very familiar look in his eyes. Just like how Adam would get right before he beat the shit out of me.

So I run.

Spinning on my heels, without any warning or indication that I was going do so, I bolt for the door, flashbacks of Adam attacking me spinning through my mind.

Especially when I'm suddenly grabbed from behind, Marshall's strong hand wrapping around my elbow, his fingers digging harshly into my flesh, causing me to wince in pain. He turns me around to face him, his other hand squeezing my face.

"Don't fucking talk about shit you know nothing about, bitch. Cause you don't know me at all, Bree," he says angrily to me, his blue eyes now dark as night. "So don't fucking presume shit, and don't speak on my family ever," his jaw locking in place, his dark eyes glaring angrily into mines.

"Oh, you mean... you mean how you've talked about MY family without knowing anything?!" I then choke out, and he pushes me away from him with disgust written all over his place.

"Get the fuck out, bitch, before I fuck you up," he glares at me.

"My parents really were caring towards me, Em! They loved me!!" I then blurt out, and I don't even know if I want to convince me or him at this point.

"Yo, do I look like I give a damn about that, Bree? Get out!" He flips me the bird, the infanous Eminem gesture, so I flip one right back at him, and he chuckles.

"This ain't even how you do it, girl," he then says to me, and I frown.

"What?"

"Do it again," Marshall walks up to me. I look at him like he's insane.

"Nah, for real. Do it again."

I roll my eyes and then flip him off.

"See, not enough emotion, baby girl. Not enough contempt. And this ain't how you are supposed to hold up your hand. This IS though," reaching up, his fingers wrap around my hand, remolding the gesture. Fucking Marshall Mathers teaching me how to flip people off properly.

If I was a fan girl of his, I would be so giddy right now.

But I'm not. And we both know it.

"See, that's how you do it, bitch. Now get the fuck out," Marshall then tells me, backing away from me.

"Thought I told you to stop calling me a bitch, boy," I reply back, lowering my hand and relaxing my fingers.

"Get the fuck out, Bree," he repeats, then lowly mutters, "for your own fucking good."

"My parents... they did love me at first. And we WERE a happy family," I say anyway to his back. "We didn't have much, just like I've said in the therapy session earlier. But they always did their best to provide for me anyways. I remember this one day, I was just turning 5 back then, my mom, she took me to a mall for my birthday, she was going to buy me my first Barbie doll. Her and dad having had both settled on that it should he a Teresa, because they had both felt like a Latina dill would be the closest in looks to a biracial one, and they both had earned me to play with something I could relate to the most. Of course I didn't know any of that back then, but they've both told me years later. Anyways... me and mom was at the mall, and all of a sudden, this tall man in a suit had walked up to us. He had seemed taller than life to me, and he's told mom that he was with some casting agency, and that they were looking for a child actor for this brand new sitcom about to launch, and that I had looked like the part. My mother was really skeptical of him though, so she ended-up walking away, even if she did take the guy's card. And me, I didn't even understand what I what they were talking about that day, I just wanted my Barbie doll. And mom had eventually bought me one, at a different mall. Weeks later, both her and my dad sat me down, and they asked me how would I feel about being on TV. And all I could think about back then were Coca-Cola commercials for some reason, and how fun it always looked, so I squared and said yes. Then, next thing I knew, I was taken to what I now understand was an audition. This nice older woman, she fed me some lines to say into the camera, and she told me to just have fun with it, and my parents had encouraged me to do so, so I did. I read the lines, and next thing I knew, everybody in the room was so pleased with me, saying how I was a natural. That's how I had ended-up getting casted on Colorful World. And my parents were so happy for me. And I've been on that show for years. And it was so much fun. Then I've noticed how things would change for me and my parents. All of a sudden, I was pulled from the public school I used to attend and put into a charter school at first, then I was being homeschooled. And we no longer had to live in a small crumpled up apartment in the ghetto, no, we had moved into what my parents would call the suburbs, and I've noticed also, that their clothes would look different, they were now dressed like how people in the movies looked. But I was happy, you know? Happy that I was providing for them, happy that mom and dad were always so proud of me, always praising me for how well I was doing."

I stop speaking for a few seconds, getting choked up.

Also expecting him to mock me again, but Marshall doesn't say anything this time.

He sits back on the bed, finally facing me, then he waves me over to come to him, so I do.

"Go on," he now encourages me to speak, looking at me intently, but I avoid his eyes.

"Everything was going great, and yes... perfect," I tell him, staring straight ahead of me. "I didn't know it back then, but I was apparently making a lot of money on the set of Colorful World, and me being a minor, it was only natural that my parents were the ones in charge of my finances. It's made perfect sense, and being only a child, I've never even thought of questioning it ever. Even when interviewers would ask me how I felt about never actually seeing any of my paychecks. All of the money I've ever made off of the sitcom were supposed to go to my trust fond for college that I would be able to access once I've turned 18 anyways. And I was always cool with that. Only like... back when I was just about 16, I had wanted to throw this sweet 16 party for myself, wanted to buy a car also, so I asked my parents about it, the looks on their faces instantly turning sheepish. Then, next thing I knew, I was being told how ungrateful I always was for them raising me, and that the only reason I've even had a career now was because of them, and because of all of the sacrifices they've made for me. And I was like... so bewildered by that, I couldn't understand why they were acting like this. But later on, I found out. You see, Em, my parents, they were likely lashing out on me to mask their own guilt."

I finally meet his eye, and his smirks. Not in a mocking manner. In a knowing one.

"They've spent all of your shit, haven't they?" He asks me, and I nod.

"They have. All of the money I've ever made, everything that was supposed to ever be in my trust fond, my parents have been steadily helping themselves to it for years. And at first, I truly belive that it was just little things here and there, some of it, the majority of it, having probably spent on ME in the beginning. But not during the last couple of years. During which, both my mom and my dad have been blowing all of my paychecks entirely on themselves. Buying themselves clothes, jewelry, expensive cars, things like that. By the time I would be 18, not only there would be absolutely nothing left in my trust fond, but I would likely find myself in debt as well, all on the behalf of my parents who have gone from having nothing to literally everything, and apparently, they simply couldn't control the urge, so I've gotten myself emancipated from them at the age of 16. And they were both furious with me, and they have refused to speak to me ever since. Even when I offer them money to pay their bills, they would gladly accept the money, but they won't talk to me."

I finish pouring my heart out to him, revealing something that's been in the public's eye for years, but yet something I've never actually spoken about with anybody before, and I feel so exposed around him right now.

"Why you even try reaching out to them then? Fuck them!" Marshall says to me passionately. He lifts my face up to his, pinching my chin between his forefinger and thumb.

And I almost get lost in the intensity in his blue gaze.

Knowing damn well that I was right before. He DOES relate to my story somewhat, and it IS personal to him.

"I... I don't know how to just force myself to cut them out completely," I admit to him. "They are still my parents, and I love them, and I know that at some point, they had loved me to, and they were NOT just looking at me as a waling talking paycheck!!" I say fiercely.

Marshall laughs bitterly at my statement then.

"You've got a lot to learn, Brianna," he tells me. "Cause parents truly ain't shit. Believe me, I know."

"Why, because your own mother had sued you before?!" I blurt out, fully expecting him to flip out on me again, tell me again how I shouldn't speak on something I don't know shit about.

Watching his haw clench as his eyes lock on mines again.

Then, to my surprise, he chuckles, lickikg his lips nervously.

"Yeah. That too," Marshall tells me. "But see, the truth is, the real reason I flipped the fuck out cause of your story, Bree, is cause your parents are just like me in a way. I've also wanted nothing but the best for my daughter. My intentions WAS good, I swear to God," his voice rises slightly as his eyes plead with me to believe him. "But ultimately," he then continues, "I've sold her out for fame and for better life. And I'm a piece of shit for that, for real."