AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Cutting cries and gruff commands call out, but it all happens too quick. The mother is bound to the gurney with her hands still cuffed. The red-and-white door slams against her screams. The officer throws the girl off his shoulders while the other one shoves her into the back of the squad car.
Tires kick up dust and rocks.
Silence falls into place against my shaking adrenaline.
I swear to God I'll kill Ed someday. But right now, Ed has work to do.
Because there's no way in fucking hell I'm going to let him fuck up some teenage girl the same way he did me.
Thirty-One
Present Day
Atlas
The breeze is cool against my face as I step out onto the back porch. Wildflowers dance in the orange-and-pink hues of the setting sun. She snips them with long stems still intact. My mother loves flowers. It’s when I see her old self shine through the most.
She looks back at me. The rosary I conserved all these years dangles from her neck, swaying sideways with the warm breeze. I remember the moment I slipped that around her neck. It was like the final piece of a long-forgotten puzzle clicking into place. And with it, I was home. We were home.
My mom’s dark eyes gloss over like they do often, more so when she stares long and hard, but then a small smile pulls at the corner of her lips just before strong arms wrap around me from behind. I lean into Rowan, and his warmth is a calming energy that coils all around me. It’s the feeling of safety. Of love.
“She likes the red ones,” Rowan whispers, and it makes me smile that that little detail is the same too.
She was lost when we picked her up from the institute. Her brown eyes weren’t the same. The laughter and love that I remember beaming from them was gone. She was hollow.
But she wasn’t dead. She wasn’t broken.
None of us are now.
Everyday we're a little bit stronger. A little bit happier.
Rowan presses a gentle kiss to my cheek before he breaks away and walks over to where my mom is crouching. Something warms in my chest as I watch him bend to her level and when they start speaking Spanish together, that feeling only intensifies, especially since I know he learned for me. For her.
The friendship he’s formed with her means everything to me. I think it means a lot to him too. He doesn’t talk to his own mom anymore. He still hasn’t forgiven her for the years of abuse she let him endure at the hands of her husband. I’m not sure he ever will.
Maybe in time, but some wounds can still be raw, no matter how much time has passed since it was inflicted.
The three of us are content out here after we had to leave the city. Which was fine by me. We quieted down in a pretty country home at the edge of the woods, just a few miles from where it all happened.
I still drive into town twice a week for my classes. I still meet Anna on the days I work.
I could leave everyone else behind easily, but Anna is someone I value far too much to leave her. Her friendship and quirkiness were just the things that got me out of my head when I needed it the most. For that, I’ll be eternally grateful, even when she seems to be keeping her own secrets from me lately. I just know that whatever’s going on in her life, I’ll be here for her. Like she was there for me.
After everything that happened, I was so terrified it would go back to that lost sensation that Ed threw me into once upon a time. But I didn’t feel the guilt or confusion wash over me like it did years ago. Not even when the news broke out across the media about who Ed really was. All those papers were found once again when Rowan sent his mom an email of the picture’s he’d taken of the documents. She went to the police herself, then leaked them online for good measure. Just in case any of the dirty politicians that had allied with Ed tried greasing palms of the authorities to make the problem go away.
Everything went to shit overnight, the headlines blaring what a terrible, corrupt person Ed was. And when his body landed on the slab of the morgue, well, it was easy to manipulate evidence and cause of death, with Rowan’s help.
No one questioned a thing.
It left us free to leave. Especially when all his private institutions shut down and underwent investigations. We were able to get my mom out of that awful place and finally put it in our rear-view mirror.
Things are different but the same now. Rowan sold his penthouse and bought three acres and a dream home that I never could have imagined.
I don’t snoop through his phone anymore. He still paws through my underwear drawer when he thinks I’m not looking. He still grumbles on the rare occasion that Simon dares to message me, but he’s not violent about it anymore because he knows Simon is a nice guy, and I’ve already shown that me and nice guys? We don’t mix. And when Rowan and I are feeling particularly adventurous, he quietly pulls out a goalie mask, and we play our little game of cat and mouse out in the woods at night.
Life didn’t kick off to a great start, but I believe it all happened for a reason. A purpose.
In a way, I’m proud of myself for finally standing up to Ed. Maybe it was a darker form of closure, but I deserved it. Ed definitely deserved it. And I’ll never regret doing what I did.
Because finally–finally–I believe myself when I say everything’s going to be okay.
The End.
