Chapter 29 #2
I don’t know where we’re going, and I can barely feel his hand on me.
I’m numb, but I feel too much. I think I’m shaking.
The room might be spinning. The only thing a blast of fresh air does is quiet the racing thoughts enough for me to yank myself out of Leo’s touch the moment he leads us along an alley that goes down into a gully.
“Just leave,” I tell him without turning around, and I stumble across the grass to get as far away from the church as I can.
“I—”
I spin around to face him. That’s when the first tear falls. “Leave,” I choke out. “Please. I can’t deal with this right now.” I swing my arm up, covering my mouth with my forearm to stop the sob.
Leo zeros in on the tear trickling down my cheek, and he goes from angry to pissed. “You need to cut that woman off. She—”
“Is my mother,” I hiss. Even though I wish she wasn’t. I wish anyone but her was.
“Blood doesn’t excuse behavior.”
I shake my head, swiping away the tears, knowing damn well they’ve ruined my makeup. Yet another thing I can’t let Mom see.
What’s it to him, anyway? Why is he even here? Is he forgetting that he didn’t want me? He ignored me for months and did something unforgivable, but I’m stupid and desperate enough to get over it—because that’s what I am. Stupid trash.
God, I want her voice out of my fucking head.
“I’m not having this conversation with you when I can’t trust you after everything you’ve done.”
Leo’s eyes narrow. “That’s hypocritical.”
“You sent your fucking friends after me!” I throw my arms out.
“I didn’t.” His answer comes out low and immediate, eyes darkening as he stalks forward.
I keep stumbling back, clutching onto the anger before it can revert into sadness. “Oh right, because they magically guessed that I messaged you and found what I said just floating around in—”
“Jack Norton went through my phone. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when. But the only person on my team who would do that is him.”
What?
He . . . I was right then? Leo, he . . . he wouldn’t have done something like that to me. That’s what I thought all those months ago.
My feet are rooted in place as he closes the distance and cups my cold, wet cheek in his hand. “I have not—and will never—do anything to hurt you.”
“Why would Jack do that?” I whisper, because the rage I am holding on to is too fickle. I can’t stay mad at Leo if he keeps acting like this.
“The same reason he won’t leave you alone, and why your mother brings you down at every chance she gets: control.”
The space between my brows pinches. “He wants to control me?”
“No, me.” His expression grows tight as he glares at something over my head for a moment. “That friend I mentioned who turned my entire family against me, that was Jack. He wants to push you away to isolate me.”
Something about that rattles me. It’s his moment of vulnerability, but it’s my mother who jumps into my mind.
Jack wants me to stop talking to Leo, for a different reason than why Mom wants me to cut ties with him. It’s the same reason why she was trying to set me up with Thomas—she’d still have me wrapped around her finger even if I married him.
If I’m able to think for myself, how can she make decisions for me?
“You didn’t have anything to do with what they did?” I need to hear him say it again. I don’t want to walk away with a single doubt in my mind.
“Nothing,” he swears. “And that picture they took of me and that woman was taken two seconds before I told that leech to get fucked.”
For some reason, that makes me cry harder. A weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and all I feel is weak.
“Promise?”
“Promise.” He pulls me into his arms and tucks my head beneath his chin. “Come here. I can’t stand it when you cry.”
A watery laugh rumbles out of my chest at the ridiculousness of this entire situation, from my new stalker to my own murderer. I laugh because if I don’t, I’ll have to remember this is my reality now, and the road ahead passes through every level of Hell.
The tears fall freely, soaking the blazer that fits him like a glove, and no doubt smearing makeup on his black shirt and tie. I’ll be embarrassed about it later when I’m not crying into someone’s arms for the first time in my life.
Leo runs his hand over my head and down my back. If I could stay in his warm embrace forever, I would. It feels like nothing can reach me as long as I’m right here. I never realized how a simple gesture could get me to solid ground so quickly.
But somewhere at the back of my mind, I know this isn’t going to last. Nothing good happens to me, and Leo is simply too good to be true. And Mom . . . Her words are still in my head. Leo might want me now, but once he opens his eyes and truly sees me, he’ll change his mind.
That’s what she’d tell me, and I’m so fucking scared that she’s right about that too.
I pull away once I manage to control myself enough to turn my cries into sniffles. He has to ruin the moment, though.
“Your mom—”
I step out of his reach, shaking my head. “Stop, I don’t want to talk about it.”
He gives me a look that tells me he most definitely will not be dropping it. “The relationship will never get better. You need—”
“I know what I need to do,” I snap, because I don’t want to hear it.
“I’m not blind. I’m not fucking stupid.” The word tastes like acid.
“You don’t get it, Leo. She’s my mother, alright?
And I— We’re—” I suck in a sharp breath.
“We’re meant to respect our elders. No matter what.
No matter how fucking horribly they treat us, or if they don’t deserve it.
We take care of our parents because they took care of us.
We don’t put them in a home or tell them to get fucked.
We stick around because that’s what’s expected of us. And you will never get it.”
The tears are salty on my tongue, and I feel too big for my body, like any second my flesh will tear to make way for the emotions boiling inside me.
“I know everything that she does, and how awful she is, and cruel, and abusive, and toxic, and how fucked I am in the head because of her. We’re from different cultures; I can’t just .
. . I-I just can’t, okay? I can’t cut her off, I don’t— She’s my mom.
I have no siblings or cousins I’m close with.
She’s the only family I have, and she gave birth to me. And I . . . have to stay.”
I’m not strong enough to do what I need to do. I know there’s only one right answer—one fix—but I’m too scared to do it because what if it is the wrong choice?
Leo’s brows flatten as he inches closer. “Obligation is not the same thing as choice. She’s doing the bare minimum as a parent—”
No. No, he doesn’t get it.
“Earlier this year, she paid for the new tires for my car, and she was going to help pay for my tuition. Even though she was mad I dropped out, she helped me find my apartment and clean up my credit score, and if I ever need financial help, she’s there.
Her door is always open to me. I-I can’t just turn away from her. She’s done so much for me.”
She’s not a bad mom. She’s done everything a parent should do. She’s gone above and beyond, and is hailed by every single person I speak to about how great she is. It’s the things that come out of her mouth that are the problem.
If I lose her, I lose my safety net. I lose the one person I know who will always take me under their wing. And without knowing what’s happening with my career, or what my new stalker will do, or how this will play out with Leo, I can’t lose that safety.
“There will always be something for her to hang over your head,” Leo says slowly.
“How much of your life are you willing to play with until you decide the debt is cleared? How many times will you let her set you on fire to keep you warm before there’s no more light for you to give?
She treats you like you’re hers to manipulate.
” Why do his words hurt so much? “You’re her collateral damage.
You don’t owe loyalty to people who make you feel like you’re never enough because that’s not loyalty—that’s conditioning. Guilt is a weapon.”
“I owe—”
“You owe your abuser nothing.”
I bite down a sob, wrapping my arms around myself. That’s what she is, isn’t she? Two things can be true at once. She’s my mother and my tormentor.
The answer to my problems is so clear, but it’s murky at the same time. Leo makes it sound so simple.
Did he find it easy to cut off his parents after a single incident? Have I been so—as he said—conditioned to take the beatings that I interpret them as love? That so long as my heart still beats, she can break as many bones as she’d like?
What’s safety if it’s in the hands of someone who hates me?
“You deserve a love and a life that doesn’t hurt, and your mother has given you neither,” Leo tells me. “Choosing distance isn’t betrayal, Mina—it’s self-preservation.”
Then why does it feel like I’m sacrificing myself either way?
The entire world is blurry as I stare down at my feet. I can’t look at him.
“I want to go home.”
There’s a moment where neither of us moves or breathes, and his last words are a nail in my coffin.
“Picking peace isn’t selfish.” His solid hand grasps my arm. “Choose your peace with me.”