Page 144 of Love Me

“Soon, sweetie.”

“Can Kaden come too?”

Mommy turns and says, “I’m sorry, but you won’t see him again.”

“Nooo! Why? He’s my friend.”

“Sweetie, shh, don’t cry.”

But it’s not just the tears. I scream. A desperate shout to go back to him and my friends.

“Celine.” My dad yells at me, and I quiet instantly. He’s never yelled at me before.

“We want what’s best for you, and if that means you won’t see your friends, then that’s it. You’ll make other friends.”

“But, Daddy.”

“Stop the car,” my mom says.

My father stomps on the brakes, and sheer panic looks back at me from the rearview mirror.

“What’s wrong?” my mother asks.

“The brakes. They don’t work.”

“No.” My mother screeches and yanks the seat belt from her body while my father raises his voice, this time at her to stay seated. The cliff stretches along the right side of the car, appearing as an endless loop, encircling the ocean. My mom hops in the back with me.

“I love you the most in this entire world,” she says, kissing my eyelids.

“I love you too, Mommy.”

“I want you to promise me something.”

Oh, I love promising things and she always says I am the best at keeping them. I just want her to never stop loving me.

“Don’t let anyone control you. Fight if you need to.”

“But you said fighting is bad.”

“Not if you do it to survive. Tell your grandmother I was loyal to her as the matriarch. I would have done everything for her until the moment you came into my life.”

“Celine,” my dad says, and my mom wraps me in her arms. “Everything is going to be fine.”

She puts her hands on my ears, but I can still hear muffled sounds.

“They must be near. Fuck.”

“We knew the risk, my love. But Celine has to survive this.”

The therapist’s voice pulls me back to the here and now. My trembling fingers lift to my cheeks, finding wetness. I turn my head noting that Kaden’s body is stiff to the point it might snap, and Hunter braces against the wall.

“Take me back. I need to find out more.”

But I know, don’t I? She sacrificed herself to save me. Since the moment she jumped in the back of the car with me, all Mom did was be my human shield. The pain explodes in my chest, but I must go through with this.

“Sky.”

“I can take it,” I assure him.

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