“Sometimes the ends justify the means.”I put the car in drive but don’t move yet.“Address, Eve.”
She’s quiet for so long I think she’s going to call my bluff.Then she hits the voice command button and rattles off an address in a voice so low I almost miss it.The car has better hearing than me, fortunately, and it begins calculating the shortest route.
“Thank you.”I pull into traffic, adjusting the rearview mirror to see Megan in the backseat.“You okay back there?”
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Megan says cheerfully.“I’m just enjoying the show.”
Eve takes another sip of hot chocolate and glares at me over the cup.“For the record, I’m going to make you pay for manhandling me like that.”
The threat makes me want to smile.If she’s threatening me, she’s feeling better.“Looking forward to it, Princess.”
“I told you to stop calling me that!”
“Make me.”
The words hang in the air between us, and I see the calculation, exhaustion, and a glimmer of heat within her brown eyes.“I will,” she says quietly, and there’s a promise in her voice that makes me want to smile.
“I’m counting on it,Princess.”
When I meet her eyes, I know that if she had the strength to go through with it, I’d be lying on the cold hard ground next to Luis.
My lips twitch.
She’ll be fine.
Iwas always stubborn as a child.Took after my mother, as my father would often point out laughingly.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why my mother and I will simply never get along.
I stare out the car window, my body warm from the heater, but there’s something cold and hard lodged deep inside my chest.There is no length my mother will not go to to get her way, but I am my mother’s daughter.I refuse to bend to her wishes.
This is my life, and I've carefully constructed the parameters I live by with my own rules.I won’t let her take it away from me.
Seeing Luis standing on the front porch of my childhood home pissed me off.The frustration and the humiliation were too much.The smug satisfaction in his eyes as if I were something that had always belonged to him, a toy my mother had handed over to him.A thing with no autonomy.
I could hear the whispered argument between Marco and my mother.But Marco, as loving as he is, cannot stand up against my mother.He's always protected her.
He convinced me to stay for dinner, and I watched while my mother criticized the green bean salad she normally loves.I chewed the food placed in front of me but tasted nothing; it all felt like ash in my mouth.Luis’s presence radiated against me like toxic coals while my mother droned on and on about how she was envisioning a summer wedding for us, assuring him I would properly apologize to him later.I knew leaving then was impossible, so I waited for the right opportunity.During dessert, I slipped out.
I had plans to take my keys and belongings, but she hid everything away.She knew I would try to escape.As if that would stop me.So I walked.
The anger burning inside me provided enough fuel for me to place one foot after the other.It was so cold that when I stumbled and lost my shoe, I didn’t even notice.I just wanted to get home where I would feel safe, where nobody could hurt me.
Of course I had to run into Caleb, of all people.
I tug at the sleeves of the jacket he forced me to wear.It smells like him.My eyes are fluttering shut, and I wonder why I find his scent so comforting.
“...ve?”
I jerk awake at the sound of my name.“Huh?”
“We’re here.”
There’s a face close to mine.A very handsome face.Dazedly, I stare at it, and then it murmurs, “Eve?”I blink, trying to focus on this face hovering inches from mine.Caleb’s blue eyes are studying me with an intensity that makes my stomach flutter.
“We’re here,” he repeats, his voice gentler than I’ve ever heard it.
I look around, recognizing the familiar brick facade of my apartment building.The warmth from the car’s heater has made me drowsy, and my limbs feel heavy, like I’m moving through molasses.
