Bitter Kisses (It's Just High School #3) - Thandiwe Mpofu Page 0,84
my mother is?” Mia whispers, distress in her voice as she starts fidgeting.
“Your mother?” the detectives look confused at Nicky.
“Mia sweety, Nancy…” Fuck, she might not be ready for this because immediately, she starts shaking. “It’s all right Mia, you’re safe.”
“I… I can’t,” she whispers in a voice so small, so broken, so full of dread, my protective instincts kick in. I know we should tell her that Nancy is gone but there’s something she’s trying to say about Nathan.
“You can, baby,” I whisper, shaking the hold on my shoulder so I can get close to her. “What is it?”
Mia looks at me, and the tears starts falling.
Fuck, how many times am I supposed to break? The hold this girl has on me…
She swallows, then nods slowly.
“It’s okay,” I whisper, my fucking voice craggy. She nods, her eyes wide, blinking slowly at me.
“Can you check the house please?” Mia asks the detectives.
“Can we ask why?” the doctor asks.
Nicky starts weeping silently, clutching her chest.
“Because he always locks her up after he beats her.”
“Jesus,” I hear Dad seethe behind me. “You sonofabitch!”
“What?!” Nathan blows up, taking a threatening step closer to Mia’s bed. “I don’t…”
Mia jumps.
“Get him out of here!” one of the detectives demands. “He’s scaring her.”
“He does that to Auntie too,” Mia cries and looks at Nicky. “Auntie, are you all right?”
“Oh Mia,” Nicky cries. “He… he’s a monster.”
At that, Nathan the fucked up asshole starts fighting. It takes both cops to hold him back. “You stupid bitch! You’re lying!”
“I was so afraid of saying anything,” Nicky says, looking down at Mia then to the cops. “He beat me up and forced me sign away my rights to my own child.”
“Your… child?” Mia croaks, her eyes wide.
“Yes, baby,” Nicky whispers.
“So, I’m… I’m your daughter?”
“Oh God, yes, Mia.”
Mia is silent for a while. Looking wildly around the room.
“What about… mom? Nancy?” Mia whispers hoarsely.
“She’s lying, princess! Nancy is dead!” Nathan shouts from the door, fighting the cops.
“Yes, because you killed her!” Nicky fires back. And with those words, chaos breaks in the room.
“What?” Mia gasps silently, then she looks at me.
The machine starts beeping incessantly now.
“Leave me alone!” Nathan shouts. “I’m not the criminal here! His son is! Arrest him. Now!”
“Stop resisting!”
The man is a despicable piece of shit and for hurting Mia, he’s going to get a taste of his own shit. I don’t give a damn if the cops intervene or not.
“No! Princess, tell them! Remember you told me that someone hurt you? You remember that, right?” Nathan shouts. With my fucking soul about to be expunged out of my body, I watch as Mia looks at Nathan, her gaze hooded, not revealing a thing. “You told me that someone hurt you and you told me his name. Isn’t that the insolent bastard who kidnapped you, assaulted and hurt you?”
“You’re leading her on! We don’t even know what she knows or what she remembers!” Nicky says in a rush.
“Tell these cops that he’s the one who hurt you!” Nathan demands, his words clipped as he stares down at Mia.
“Mr. Montague, please,” the doctor says, effectively cutting him off. Nathan looks at Mia, then to the doctor and Nicky. Silent but angry, the bastard steps back. “Do you remember what happened to you?”
Mia doesn’t react for a second, a second that drags on for an eternity.
I feel like I’m on a fucking bed of blazing hot stones as the weight if her answer pressed down on my chest.
If she says ‘no’ then there’s no way she’ll be able to tell the cops who took her or what exactly happened to her… Hell, someone will have to fucking explain it all to her and yet, she can’t even take Nancy’s death right now.
The devastation of that knowledge threatens to crash me, breaking me down until I’m nothing but still, I can’t look away, biting my own tongue until I draw blood.
She’s silent and then she… shakes her head mutely, her eyes wide with fright.
FUCK!
“Do you remember what happened?” She nods. “Can you tell us?”
“They were begging him to…” she whispers, then looks up at Nicky who is crying beside her bed.
“Not to sell my daughter,” Nicky whispers shakily, then like a someone who’s had enough of being beaten down, she looks up directly at Nathan. “That day, my sister and I were begging him not to sell our daughter.”
The words drop like a fucking tune to a horror movie.
I hear the gasps of shock in the room, the stunned silence