Page 34 of Holden’s Resurrection

“Gotta run, Leigh-Leigh. Call you soon as I can.”

“Kay.”

Holden quickly shoved his phone in his pocket, not even checking to see if the call disconnected.

“Come on, baby girl, let’s get you checked out.”

Faith didn’t stir.

13

“I can’t believe you’re trusting that man with my granddaughter,” my mother griped.

My eyes drifted from my mother to Kennedy. One look at my friend told me she was done with my mom’s complaining. McKenna, on the other hand, looked like she felt sorry for me. Thankfully, Nixon and Alec had both left with my father before my mom started in again. Neither man seemed real happy with Zoe.

As for me, I was at the end of my rope. There were so many emotions flowing through me I couldn’t hold onto one of them long enough to process it and move to the next. They all mumbled together into a ball of extreme unease, and my mom was making it so much worse.

“Enough, Mother.”

“Charlotte,” she snapped.

The warning was clear. Even at my age, Zoe Axelson thought she was the boss of me. Actually, she thought she was the boss of everyone. That hadn’t gone well for her when I was with Holden. He’d never been outright rude to her, but he made it clear he wouldn’t put up with her shit, and part of that shit was the way she spoke to me. Needless to say, if she didn’t like Holden before he broke up with me, she despised him after. She said it was because he broke my heart, but that wasn’t the truth. She hated him because she’d thought there was a possibility he could be Faith’s father. Neither of the potential baby daddies—and yes, that was what she’d called Paul and Holden—were good enough to mingle with the Axelson family. But at least Paul had died a hero.

My gaze went back to my mother, and the rope I was barely holding onto slipped from my fingers and I was in a freefall. Not a single iota of compassion for me. Not an ounce of sympathy that I was lying in a hospital bed with a concussion while my baby was three hours away from me. No empathy that my child had been stolen from my home. Not a goddamn thing for me or my daughter. It was all about her and her hatred for Holden. And her contempt for me, how I, as a grown woman, got pregnant before I was married and how that made her look.

Fuck that.

“I think you should go home,” I told her.

“Really, Charlotte. And how would that look? Your father and I in Virginia while you’re in the hospital?”

“I don’t much care how it will look, Mother. And if you didn’t activate the country club phone tree and tell everyone I was in the hospital, no one would’ve known.”

“You’re our daughter, those are our friends. They’d be upset if they couldn’t support us in our time of need.”

Seriously?

I had no words. Absolutely none. My mother’s selfish need for attention knew no bounds.

“I want you to leave.”

“Charlotte—”

“Either you leave or I’m calling hospital security and I’ll ask them to escort you out. Think about how that’ll look.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” she sneered.

“What’s going on?” My father’s voice boomed in the small room and a wolfish smile tugged at my mother’s lips.

She wrongly thought since my father was back she’d have an ally, that together they could bully me into whatever Zoe wanted. And why wouldn’t she? My whole life I’d backed down, I’d chosen the path of least resistance, which meant I gave in because I didn’t want the hassle.

I’d trained my parents, particularly my mother, to treat me like shit. I’d taught her that if she pushed hard enough, I’d roll over like a dog.

Yep. I was a doormat that read: Please walk all over me, Zoe Axelson.

Not today.

“Edward, please talk some sense into your daughter. She’s being ridiculous.” My mother actually tilted her head back and sniffed.