Page 58 of Sweet Rule
“I know, princess. I missed you too.” He rubs my back and gathers me close, before he lifts me and settles me into his lap. “How do you feel now?” he asks.
“Tired but good. Like you made it all go away.”
“Made what go away?”
“The stress. I was so worried,” I tell him. “I didn’t know who to trust there. Not in the club. Everything felt like a game. Like if I said the wrong thing or trusted the wrong person, I’d lose the game and it was too much.” I shake my head. “I couldn’t think straight anymore. I was-I was,” I stop and swallow. “I did a bad thing.”
“What did you do, baby?”
“My mother,” I whisper quietly. I can see her face. Hear her screams as the guards dragged her away and I bite my lip, knowing that Zeus did exactly what I asked for. He wouldn’t have put me and Law through what he did tonight if he hadn’t.
“What about her?”
“He took everything from her. I made him do that. I wanted justice. Revenge and I got it but I didn’t think it through, because…” My voice dies and I swallow hard as I look up at him. I don’t want to tell him that the whole marriage thing was my fault. I know he knows I struck a deal, but he doesn’t know for what.
Things could have gone so wrong if he hadn’t shown up tonight. If he hadn’t been there, who might I have been forced to marry? I shudder thinking of the blond man or the older one. If they had won me, it would have been terrible. Any of those men but Law would have been a bad choice. I don’t want to think about where I’d be right now if he hadn’t come to the club.
“Because what?”
“Because we had to do this.”
He cups my face and rubs his thumb against my cheek. “I was going to marry you one day, Honey. That was always my plan. I don’t care if Zeus thinks he got his way, because at the end of the day, it’s my name you carry and it’s my bed you're sleeping in. As for your mother? That bitch got what she deserved, from what I saw at the club.”
I shake my head and drop my eyes. “I was angry. I was, I don’t know what I was feeling then. Everything was so heavy and Zeus kept pushing me to be like him, so I gave in to it. I did what felt good. I was,” I swallow hard and look at him again, “I thought I was acting like him, but in the end I was more like her.”
“What do you mean?” His tone is soft. Careful. He’s watching his words and I know why. It's easy to see that I’m shaken up. That I’m not the strongest right now, but that’s okay because he’s here with me and I know I can handle anything so long as he’s with me.
“My mother was always casually cruel. She never faltered in what she wanted. What her goals were. Anyone that got in the way of those goals had to be dealt with. Normally, it was me. She never hesitated to make me second, to do what she had to to get what she wanted, even if it hurt me. I did that to her tonight.”
“Then she got what she deserved. You should have had better, Honey.”
My eyes prick with tears and I nod at him. “I always told myself I deserved a mother like her. That she was what I got because if I could…if I was just be a little better, maybe she’d notice. So I tried again and again but it didn’t matter what I did or how good I was, she always chose what she wanted over me. She never wanted me.”
It’s hard to say it out loud. I’ve lived with it for years and made my peace, or at least I thought I had, but it isn’t true. There’s damage people don’t really talk about when you’re not loved by your mother. It makes you feel unlovable. As if something is innately broken and twisted about you. It makes you wonder if anyone will ever love you.
It makes you look for love in all the wrong places. The worst and most brutal places with people who never gave a shit about you to begin with. But it’s not like you can recognize just how wrong it is, because the person that was supposed to love you from the beginning never did.
Of course, you think it’s you.
Of course, you never see the harm the people you choose do to you over and over again until it’s far too late and the lie that you aren’t enough is more deeply engraved on your soul.
It takes a lot to unlearn that. I know I have a ways to go, but Law and tonight, our relationship, the fact that I have his ring on my finger. Those are all reminders and guideposts on figuring my shit out and remembering that there’s nothing wrong with me.
We don’t get to choose our parents. We don’t get to make that call. But what we do get is the chance to tell ourselves who we are and what we love. They don’t get to.
I blink past the tears and smile at Law. “I love you.”
“I love you too, princess.” He cradles my face in his hands and sighs. “I thought I lost you forever, baby.”
“I know.” My voice cracks and so does my heart. I hate that I pushed him away and believed the lies that should have been so easy to see. “I know, I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is. I should have known. I should have-”
“I should have taken better care of you. I knew something was going on, but I didn’t figure it out in time. I’m still fucking trying to figure it out, but the fact that you got revenge on your mother is not something to be upset about. She got what she deserved. She deserves that lesson.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know Law. He took everything.”
