Against All Odds

Prologue: Happy Birthday!

Molly had waited for four hours in Alan's room for him to come home. It was her birthday, and they had plans to spend the day together. "Just you and me, and no one else in the world," he had said. She had been happy that she had such a sweet boyfriend. Now she wasn't so sure. It was raining (although a steady moonlight poured in through the windows), the weather reflecting her mood.

She finally heard the front door open and footsteps in the foyer. She was about to call out to him when she heard him speak. "This is my house."

"I like it," replied another voice Molly recognized. She knew it very well. Molly didn't want to believe that she heard the same voice that woke her up each morning.

"You know," Alan said softly, so that Molly had to strain to her his voice, "you look sexy in the moonlight."

"You look sexy any time," the woman's voice replied. And Molly heard them coming up the stairs. The woman giggled, and she heard them kiss. Molly watched with horror and confusion as the door slammed open and Alan and her mother came in.

They seemed not to notice Molly. Their faces seemed glued together, and their eyes were closed. Alan had untied the laces on her mother's halter top – Molly's halter top, rather – when she couldn't stand it anymore.

Alan threw the shirt across the room, to land where Molly was previously sitting. Still oblivious to her, they kept on kissing. Molly got up, grabbed the water bottle that was next to Alan's bed, and dumped it over the two of them. Their eyes snapped open. Alan and her mother, drenched, stared at her blankly. Neither of them seemed to know what was going on.

"Well, well, well… This is a good birthday present, isn't it," Molly said, trying to keep her voice down. She sneered at them, but tears sprang to her eyes. Molly looked from Alan, looking shocked, to her mother, who tried to cover herself up as much as possible by hiding behind the first thing she could find – Alan.

"Molly–" Alan began.

"No need to explain, Alan," Molly said. Her tone was cold. "I saw exactly what was going on. But do you remember possibly saying that we would spend the day together? Just the two of us?" He stared at her. "Of course not. Why would you? In fact, you are only my boyfriend."

Her mother's face got pale. "Boy…"

"Yes, Mom, my boyfriend," Molly said coldly. "You were going to do it with my boyfriend."

She stared at Alan blankly for a second. In horror, she whispered, "He's fifteen?"

"Sixteen, Mom," replied Molly, correcting her. "He turned sixteen last April." She turned to Alan. "You see, I remember birthdays. Unlike you two, I guess. Well, happy birthday to me. I'll take my leave, then, you two have a wonderful life together." Molly turned around and stomped out the bedroom door.

Alan reached out to her, but, without looking back, Molly said fiercely, "Don't touch me." Alan's hand snapped back. "I don't ever want to see you again." Molly continued to walk down the hallway. Tears started rolling down her cheeks.

"My mother. My own fucking mother would do this to me," Molly muttered darkly, storming out of Alan's front door. She walked into the rain, not feeling the drops. Molly's mother looked from Alan to her daughter, grabbed her shirt and ran outside, too.

"Molly! Don't you walk away from your mother!" she shouted.

"Mother?" Molly shouted at her. "Mother? I don't have a mother! Who is this person? She's not the person who raised me when my father was killed! She's not the woman who, until this day, was the sole person, other than my brother, that I looked up to? No! You are not my mother! You're nothing but a whore!"

"Molly!" her mother cried. "Molly!"

"Go back and screw around with my boyfriend! Or throw yourself off of a cliff! See if I care! Because whatever pain you can inflict yourself in death is nothing to what I feel now!"

Her mother stopped chasing her, and Molly walked away, muttering, "Happy birthday. Happy fucking birthday to me." No one could distinguish the tears from the raindrops on her cheeks.