“We will wait outside,” Cedar said, her hand lingering on my back.
They got me and my mother to sit at a table inside a tent for some semblance of privacy, with blood already ready for me.
When we were finally alone, I spoke.
“Does it hurt?”
She looked up at me.
“What?” she asked, her voice much weaker than I remembered.
We humans age.I became acutely aware of that fact when I saw the wrinkles on my mother’s face. Maybe they had always been there, but I was just now noticing them.
“To look at me,” I replied, twisting to the side so she could see my slashed-through tattoo. “My scars. How I changed. The realization that you failed your own daughter and put her through hell.”
The words spilled out of me like they’d always been there, just waiting for this moment.
“Yes.” I was suddenly hit with the smell of salt water as tears gathered in her eyes. “It hurts more than I can ever explain. Vesper, I’m?—”
“I don’t want your apologies,” I spat, my fingers digging into my thigh. “You were complicit in it all. Yourapologyis just to make yourself feel better, and I want nothing to do with it.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I’m glad you found somewhere you belong. Where people love and accept you.”
“He died because he couldn’t bring himself to kill me.” She met my gaze. “Father.”
Her face tightened.
“I know,” she said. “He knew he wouldn’t be able to. That was why he sent me away.”
I gritted my teeth. I didn’t know what to say to her. In all truth, I wanted nothing from her.
“Do you think you deserve the forgiveness my brothers have given you?”
A tear fell.
“No,” she whispered.
Good.But a part of me still felt bad for being so harsh to her.
“I am happily going to spend my life with them. I won’t think about my past, and especially not about you or what Father did to me.”
She nodded. “I accept that. I deserve it.”
I wanted to scream at her, but I swallowed it.
“I loved you, and you hurt me.”
Her tears were falling freely now. “I regret it all and deserve this.”
“And I can’t help but still love you, even after it all,” I said, blood filling my eyes.
She gave me the most heartbreaking look.
“A child will always love their parents, no matter the horrors they put them through. I just hope one day I can earn a place in your life. I would…” She swallowed a sob. “I would like to see how the three of you end up.”
The box felt like it was burning a hole in my pocket. I stood up, unable to stay in the suffocating tent any longer.
