AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She merely nodded.
“Did you admit to it?” I asked.
She didn’t answer. She just stared at me.
“How could you?” Tears streamed down my cheeks. “How could you take me from a family that loved me, when you didn’t even want me?”
“I wanted you, Bella. You just always rejected me. You never loved me.”
“That’s bullshit,” I said. “I loved you so much growing up, and I did everything to get you to love me in return, but it never seemed to work. You never loved me.”
“I did, Bella,” her voice stronger than before. “I loved you so, so much, but—”
“But what?” I stammered.
“But it was never enough.”
“Never enough? For what? To get over your guilt for ripping me away from my real family?”
She averted her gaze and looked down at the ground. She said something under her breath that I could hardly make out, but it sounded like, “Can we go now?”
She was leaving me with more questions than answers, as always. I didn’t know why I expected anything more from her.
“Never enough for what?” I asked again, pleading with her to just finish her sentence.
As she was being led away, she looked back at me, but no words came from her mouth. She just stared at me and for the briefest of moments, I thought I saw tears in her eyes. I had never once seen my mother cry. At least not real tears. She knew how to turn on the crocodile tears when she wanted to manipulate someone into giving her what she wanted. But this was different. I thought for a second that maybe she really did love me, and it pained me to see her cry. After all, she might not be my birth mother, but she had raised me, she was the mother I had known all my life.
Finally, she spoke up. “It was never enough to keep our family together. Your dad still cheated on me, still went to prison. I thought you might heal our marriage, but instead, you managed to tear it apart even more.”
Her words ripped my heart right out of my chest. I had been foolish to think those tears had been because she actually loved me, and not because she was sad for herself and her life falling apart.
My knees felt weak, but I managed to stand tall. There was nothing else left to say to her as the police led her away, and I stayed there in the hallway for a moment catching my breath.
I didn’t know what to do or where to go.
I knew I needed to get a hold of Gabe, to find out what we were doing to get our girls back. My heartache because of my mom’s cruel words were not going to distract me from what really mattered. I stared down at my phone, ready to call Gabe. He had sent a message to me earlier, all in caps “DO NOT TELL THE POLICE ANYTHING.” A cold chill ran over my body.
I turned to find an officer standing there that I recognized from earlier at our place. He was headed for the door.
“Do you have news about my girls?” I asked.
“We’re doing everything we can.”
“. So you have nothing.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I know what you said. And it means nothing if you don’t know where my girls are.”
I was starting to think the police were useless.
I turned back around and headed for the door, not wanting to be anywhere near any of them when I called Gabe. He had told me he would handle it, and I trusted him, but I wouldn’t be able to rest until our girls were safe and back home where they belonged.
As I was leaving the airport, my phone rang.
“Hi, Charles,” I said as I answered. Part of me had wanted to call him dad, but it was too soon for any of that.
“Hi Bella. I hope now isn’t a bad time to talk?”
