She shakes her head, tears pouring from her eyes. “No, that’s not the man I married. I would have known. If he was a Wolf, he never would have allowed those Widows to befriend you the way they did. He would have got rid of them as soon as they stepped into your life.”
“I know,” I tell her. “But he wanted to keep it secret. He wanted to protect us from that life and keep the target off our backs. You know my guidance counselor, Miss Davies? Her family is involved with the Wolves and when I had my meeting, she recognized my name and said that she knew my father. I didn't believe her at first but the more digging I did, the more I realized that she was right.”
“That meeting was weeks ago,” she says, her voice hitching up higher. “How long have you known about all of this? How long have you been keeping this from me?”
“I … I’m sorry. I just … I didn’t know how to tell you. I knew it would be hard and I didn't want it to crush you like it crushed me. Please don’t be mad at me.”
Mom stares at me, the horrified look still etched heavily into her features. “I just …” She shakes her head, looking at me with disappointment. “I can’t with you right now. I just … I can’t.”
With that, she turns and walks to her bedroom, closing the door behind her as my world crumbles around me.
I drop down onto the couch and lean onto my knees, allowing my head to fall forward. How could I do that to her? I should have let her go on remembering him as the man he wanted her to know.
What kind of monster am I? She'll never forgive me for hiding this, or for being the one to tell her. I lose no matter what.
What am I going to do?
I sit on the couch for at least an hour, hearing nothing but the broken sobs coming from my mother's bedroom, each and every single one of them tearing me apart. So, I do what any other loving daughter would do and I face the music.
I suck up my pain, realizing that it's nowhere near as great as hers and pick myself up off the couch. I lock up the pool house and turn off the lights before making my way into Mom’s room and slipping into her bed. I wrap my arms around her and pull her into me, letting her cry out her pain while struggling to hold it together.
It’s not easy seeing the woman you’ve looked up to all your life breaking down. She’s always been so strong and has always concealed this side of her, but now that I’m grown, I'm realizing that she’s not the superwoman I always saw her as, she's just a regular, fragile human being, just like the rest of us. She feels pain just as I do and tonight, I’m the reason for that pain.
I don’t move an inch, holding onto her until we both fall into a fitful sleep and finally call an end to the night from hell.Chapter 13I sit in the cafeteria, ignoring the sharp glares from Cora. At least, I think it’s Cora. She’s a little too far away to see the finer details of her face. It's only been a little over a week since they’ve been home but I’m starting to tell the slight differences between them. For example, Cora is the ring leader. She’s the first to glare and the first to bite. Casey just goes along for the ride and to be perfectly honest, I think she’s starting to get bored of the whole ‘takedown Ocean’ plotline that they’ve got going on. Either that or she’s found someone else to keep her mind busy.
Hendrix laughs beside me as Jess continues to sulk. She’s been sulking all day and from what I can gather, things didn't go so well when she tried to push a relationship on Milo. The poor girl, falling for Milo wouldn’t be hard. He's so freakin’ sweet and adorable. She probably thought that she’d found the one. Though, that reminds me that I should probably give him a call to discuss this after school. I’ve sent a few texts demanding answers but he’s suspiciously ignoring them, and a guy like Milo is never far from his phone.
Hendrix turns to me, more than ready to have the word vomit come pouring out of her mouth with her thoughts on the bitch twins when the cafeteria doors slam open, making the whole student body turn to face the extremely scary looking dude with loud, shocked, and terrified gasps.
My eyes bug out of my head.
Oh, no.
Fucking Nic. What the hell does he think he’s doing?