Page 93 of Bleeding Hearts

“Mom?” I call out, my voice echoing around the large foyer. The house is quiet, too quiet.

When I lived here, my parents had a chef and a house cleaner that were both here every day. I can’t imagine them not still having them now, yet the house seems empty.

“In here, darling,” my mom calls from the sitting area right off the foyer. Her voice sounds more like her now, more put together and I get an eerie feeling in my bones.

I’m starting to wish I had turned around and gotten my phone. I wish I had texted Asher, or anyone for that matter, about where I was going.

I start to wonder if I should’ve come at all. But I let the pain in my mom’s voice and my need to help her make that decision for me.

“Hi, sweetheart.” My mother smiles at me from the large chair in the corner of the room as I walk inside.

She sits in a white jumpsuit and nude heels with red bottoms. Her long dark hair is pulled up into some sort of French twist and she has her normal minimal makeup on her face, although the mascara is slightly smudged, which tells me she really was crying.

“What’s going on, Mom? Did you start packing?” I ask, walking farther into the room and leaning against the chair across from her, not sitting down or getting too comfortable.

My mom’s expression changes, an apology forming in her eyes as she opens her mouth to speak, but the sound of a man’s voice cuts her off and her expression shifts again, turning to stone.

“Hello, daughter.” My father’s voice echoes throughout the room, and I feel myself freeze.

My muscles stiffen, my chest tightens, and I seem to forget to breathe. My ears ring, numbness taking over as it feels like the world is caving in around me.

This is exactly what Asher thought would happen, but I wanted so badly to believe that my mother wouldn’t do this to me that I ignored his warning.

I walked right into the cave of the beast, telling no one where I was going. Having no way to tell them where I am.

I take a deep breath, steadying myself, looking over to my mother first. Her eyes are vacant as she sits there, one leg crossed over the other, completely still. She looks like a ghost of the person she used to be.

My grandparents from my mother’s side used to show me pictures and videos of a younger version of my mother. She was so bright and free-spirited, and she reminded me a lot of myself.

But that was a person I never got to know because, to me, my mother has always been cold, hard. I suppose it’s the armor she’s built around herself to protect her from my father.

She was more maternal when I was younger, still cold, but she’d let small bits of light in, sometimes only for me on the few good days we had, especially on days when we visited her parents.

But then my father didn’t like how close of a relationship she still had with them, how close of a relationship that I was growing with them, so he demanded we cut them out of our lives.

So she did.

I started calling them and rebuilding a relationship with them once I got out of this house. They’re kind people who never liked my father but had little power to keep my mother away from him.

I still try to call them once a week, but the two of them live in a small town in Washington, about three hours away, so I rarely see them.

After my mother lost contact with them, it seemed like any love she had left in her died with their relationship. She went numb in the same way that I did when I was living through my father’s abuse.

I knew that no matter what my father did to me, I wouldn’t let his cruelty change the way that I viewed the world. I wouldn’t let it steal my kindness or my ability to love. I knew how to shut it off.

She didn’t.

“Father.” I brace myself, straightening my spine and narrowing my eyes as I turn to face him. “I thought you were away on business,” I say, my voice monotone, refusing to give him the fearful reaction he’s looking for.

“No, that was just a little fib I had your mother tell you to get you here.” He laughs. “I mean, we know you clearly have issues listening to authority or showing me and your mother the respect we deserve, so I knew the only way to get you here was to prey on that softness of yours. To have your mother play the damsel in distress. I knew you’d come running. I always did tell you that heart of yours is your greatest weakness, daughter.” He shrugs.

I try to let his words roll off my back, ignoring the fact that he knew exactly how to manipulate me to get me here. I try not to let them affect me the way they did for years.

Instead, I think of Asher’s words. His insistence that my kindness is my greatest strength. That it’s what made him fall in love with me. I feel something in my chest calm at that, but I keep my face blank, giving him nothing.

“Well, sadly for you, I won’t be staying,” I say to him. “Say whatever you manipulated me into coming here to say, and then I’ll be leaving.”

“I see you’re still the same spoiled brat you’ve always been. So ungrateful for the wonderful life that I provided you.” He scoffs. “You know, when your mother first got pregnant, I was ecstatic. My ex-wife had already begun to lose her mind, and Kaden was a weak excuse for a son, always protecting his mother.”

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