This is a wound that has been poorly stitched up time after time. Ra’Sa nudges me through our bond—he wants to step in, to smooth over the hurt so clearly radiating between us, but I push him back.
"A better life?" Griselda starts, standing. "There is no place on this earth that would offer peace to a human. I will not lay on my back for the Enduares in exchange for food and shelter. I would rather die here than suffer in the depths of hell."
I’m shocked.
You don't need to hear this,Ra’Sa tells me.
Except I do. Because maybe then, I can let go. All the years of neglect. It was as if I’d been hollowed out, taking the warmth I’d had once known. A million memories tumble through the cracks in my thoughts.
“Do you despise me that much? For so long, you told me that I shouldn’t be a mother because I wasn’t cut out for it. But I tore myself apart, brick by brick, and crossed the land to come backfor my girls,” I grieve. “It’s made me realize, maybe I’m not the unfit one.”
I remember all the years wanting my mother’s approval, only to be given insults. Each image is filled with shame. Heartache. Despair. I thought it was my fault.
But now I know she was responsible for her actions. I can’t fix her. I can’t make her understand me.
It kills me.
Griselda's eyes glisten in the light.
“So that’s it. I helped you, and now you paint me as some awful person?” she rants.
A part of me cringes away from the rage in her voice, but another part, one supported by my mate stands tall.
“You gave me food, brushed my hair, and told me stories, but you refused the one thing I ever truly wanted.” My eyes burn as tears well up.
“And what was that?” Griselda sneers.
“Love. Your voice is the voice in my head that calls me a whore, that endlessly berates me, that has made me believe I deserved the broken life I was given,” I grit out.
“Where is this coming from? Does the monster poison your thoughts? I loved you well enough.” Griselda glares at Ra’Sa.
“But you didn’t! Love doesn’t look like this—this is hatred. Resentment. I don’t believe you ever even wanted me,” I sob.
Griselda looks like she would burn me to the ground if she could.
“How dare you say that to me. If I was so awful—so severe with my words that they turned into the cruel voice in your head—why couldn’t I prevent you from coming home with two babies mere months before you left my house to become a whore? If I governed your life with such an iron fist, why are you in such chaos?” Griselda spits as if she were a viper spewing venom.
I open my mouth and let out a long, disconnected breath as each of my mother’s daggered words pierce the last remnants of my hope.
"I have loved my daughters since the moment they were born. I stayed away because I was desperate. Now, I regret it.” I say through the tears on my cheeks.
Griselda remains sitting, grinding her teeth. “If I am so horrid, then go. Take them, and let me properly mourn the loss of my family," Griselda says.
Even after everything, her words hurt.
They shouldn’t.
But they strike true, knocking all the breath from my lungs.
Ra’Sa touches my back, and I see the girls tucked against Coco.
It strikes me that Ra’Sa had been willing and ready to take on the daughters with which he shared no blood. And yet, the woman before me, who had given me her own blood, casts me out as if I were nothing.
"Lita?"Wren says, and Griselda shakes her head.
"Let me die peacefully in my own home, away from those who would accuse me.”
The word ‘please’ sits on my tongue. Instead, I burn the bridge between us. I turn around, wiping my face and gesturing for my daughters.