Page 52 of Rejected Plus-Size Mate

I shook my head, not wanting her to finish the sentence. I had wanted so badly to have Riley. I wanted to bury myself in her for years, but I’d resisted. I’d held back, and this…this was too much.

“Stop.”

My father sighed loudly. “You need to get this going. No more waiting around. We’re tired of waiting. The pack is tired of waiting.”

I ground my teeth together. "You know what, I'm done."

My mother looked confused. "What do you mean you're done?"

"I'm done. I'm leaving." I turned, and my mother hurried after me. "Cayden! What do you mean?"

I hurried out, grabbing my jacket and yanking it on.

"Cayden, think about this. We just want what's best for you. This is about your future."

"No," I snarled as I looked back at her. "You want what's best for the pack. Not me. Not April. And not Riley."

My mother looked like I'd hit her. She pulled her lips in, and her face darkened. "If you leave, you're not welcome back."

I paused at those words. She crossed her arms. "Think about this."

I looked past her, spotting Riley and April. They looked confused as they looked at me. My eyes paused on Riley. She was still so young and had so much growing up to do. I needed to do this.

I looked back at my mother. "Fine, I won't come back."

Chapter 23 - Riley

The silence fell over us, and I could see Cayden looking uncertain about himself. I wondered where his mind traveled.

Mine traveled to Brad. I thought of the endless night of tossing and turning, worried about what I'd done or what I would do wrong. I remembered so many nights staying up trying to think of how I could fix my mistake. But no matter what I did, he was never happy. Nothing I did seemed to please him.

"You okay?" I asked, taking a bite of my egg roll.

Cayden glanced at me and sighed softly. "You know I told you I left because my parents and I were fighting about you."

I nodded my head, remembering his words from earlier. He told me he was fighting about me, but I didn't know what it was about. I had thought much about it.

"Yeah…" I said, nodding my head. "You said that."

He licked his lips. "I left because they were wanting me to pursue you."

My eyebrows went up. "When…when we what?" I couldn't form a sentence, let alone think about that.

I tried to think about the first time I realized that Cayden was my mate. I couldn't remember how old I was. We had an age difference, and while I hadn't thought it was a large gap if you looked back, some people might cringe if you looked at the numbers. I always thought Cayden and I were the only ones who knew about us being mated, but his parents knew the entire time.

He frowned. "You were eleven. And I made the mistake of telling my folks you were my mate. I figured it out the first day you came over. And they wanted me to move fast with you."

I felt suddenly sick. It suddenly made sense why his folks were always so nice to me, why they never bothered if I stayed over, and why they never even batted an eyelash when they found Cayden and me alone.

I was suddenly questioning everything they had done for me. Was it all so I would want Cayden back? Was it because they wanted Cayden and me to be together?

I pulled my hand up to my mouth, feeling sick. What had they been saying to him? And how hard were they pushing?

Cayden noticed and placed a hand on my knee. "Are you okay?"

I shook my head, finding it hard to process what he was saying. I set my egg roll down, pushing the food away. "They wanted you to pursue me while I was that young?"

He nodded. "They wanted me to spend as much time with you as I could, but they really started pushing the issue when you were fifteen. And while a lot of people were…doing things at that age, I still…." He paused, looking like he was in pain. "You were still underage. And I didn't want to push anything. Like I told you before. I wanted you to have a childhood. I didn't want you to be pushed into something because that's what everyone was wanting."

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