CHAPTER 142: Going Home
RHEA
“Thank you for helping me.” I look up at Marcella and say as she gets my bags. There aren’t many things, but some of the things that I got here.
Marcella nods and places my bag into the car’s back seat.
“You know you don’t have to leave…” she trails off, turning to me. “Aron’s going to need you, and I know of all these circumstances-”
“He doesn’t want to see me. He’s never going to. And it’s better this way. For everyone. What we had was never meant to happen, and it was wrong in every way.” My hands wrap around her arms as I hold her.
She hugs me back. It’s strange, but a relief that maybe not everyone hates me for what I did. That maybe I can stop feeling so guilty.
“Drive safe.”
“I will,” I nod, opening the driver’s door. “Take care of yourself.” I look over at her one last time before sliding into the car and closing the door shut.
It’s early morning. I barely have had any amount of sleep, but that isn’t a priority. My first is to get out of here. I can’t stay here, not even for one night more.
And I cannot see what the Council’s going to do or how they’re going to deal with Aron once he faces them.
I do know that Kovas will do everything in his power to try and keep negotiating a better deal, and I hope he does.
The council doesn’t like conflicts, and Aron and his wolf became the biggest conflict of the decade.
They’re going to put him away. At least for some time.
I drive away from the manor and away from this town. For the first time, I’m not running. Instead, I’m free. Free of everything and everyone.
I head down Route 11 and start driving south. To the BlackFang territory. Back to home, to my family, back to where I belong.
It’s a bittersweet feeling to return knowing all that I felt while I was there. But times have changed. My mother is different, my father doesn’t despise me as much as he did before, and well, my brother, I’ll have to see to that.
But they’re my family, and for now, I can only hope that it’s enough.
A few hours in, and I can finally see the sign of BlackFang territory in the distance. My stomach churns a little out of hunger. The sun is still high up, and the day hasn’t turned dark yet. The roads are clear. It’s a perfect day for driving and just thinking. The hours that I’m on the road, my mind doesn’t stop working. I think of all things, of my mistakes, my past, and all that’s happened.
There’s no way I’m going to repeat the same again.
It’s going to be different now.
This time.
“Oh, Rhea,” my mother says as she stands by the doorway, and her face turns blank for a moment as she looks at me.
I already informed her last night that I’d be coming. All before I poisoned Aron’s wolf after luring him in. “Mom,” I say as she steps aside and I step in.
“Look at you,” she whispers. Her eyes scan over my face, down my body, to my clothes and my bags. “You look so different.” Her hand comes up to my face, and she brushes the loose strand of my hair behind my ears.
Her fingers linger there, gently cupping my cheek, like she’s not sure I’m real. I can see it in her eyes–how much she wants to say, how much she wants to ask. But she doesn’t. Maybe because she knows I won’t have the answers. Or maybe because, for once, she just wants to be a mother.
I lean into her hand, just a little. It’s strange how foreign that warmth feels.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispers.
My throat tightens. I don’t say it back. I can’t. Then’s too much
toy been us. Too many years of silence and
distance, of pretending I didn’t exist when it wa Successfully unlocked!
The scent of my house is almost exactly the same, even the perfume that’s lingering in the air.
“Your room’s still the same,” she says quietly. “No one touched anything.”
I nod once, “Thank you.”
1/2
+15) 142. GOing Home
“Did you bring anything?”
“It’s in the car. I’ll get it later.”
She leads me down the hallway, and we sit together. I can tell there’s no one else at home because there are no cars parked outside, and the silence is just too fitting.
“Did they leave because-”
“No, no.” My mother’s hand comes on my shoulder. “Luke is in a game. Your father went with him a while ago. They should be on their way back any time.”
My eyes don’t tear off from everything inside the living room.
“They’ll be happy to see you,” my mother tells me a moment later.
And it makes me laugh a little.
“Let’s be hopeful, Mom.”
“It’s different,” she continues. “Luke has been so apologetic and quiet since you left the last time. You won’t believe it, but you’ll see it yourself soon enough.”
I nod once more.
“Do you want to have something to eat? I prepared some dinner. Your favourite.”
“I’m not really hungry,” I finally look at her. “I think I just need some sleep. I have been driving all day and then everything else.”
“Well, your room is ready. Do you want some help with the stuff?”
“No, that’s alright. I’ll manage.”
We get in a few more words before I make it back to the car and pull out my belongings, that are in several bags. I take a few upstairs and then a few more until my old room is filled with my stuff again.
The ache of rejecting Cade is one thing, and then there’s the other act I committed.
Twice in one day.
I’m filled with guilt.
Night falls, and I take a few things out of one of the bags, just to change out of my clothes and wash off the entire drive and the little blood that’s still on me.
But while I’m shuffling through my own things, I find something that shouldn’t be there. That shouldn’t have been packed. The letters.
The one Aron wrote to me.
The one that Kael wrote to me.
…when that day comes, I will have no time for your insolence or your refusal. I will not allow you to defy or fight against me as you will then accept your fate as mine, and mine alone. That is a promise, and I keep my promises–even the unpleasant
ones…
My hand clutches the paper tighter than before, just rereading them and then the other letters, the other words that Aron sent to me.
Only if he hadn’t lied.
My eyes close shut, the paper crumples, and the tears roll down my cheeks. There’s a sharp pain in my chest, an empty and hollow pain, aching and hurting more than anything.
And it is not going away, even though Kael’s gone.
What if I made a mistake?
