SWNOVELS Chapter My CEO 170
170 Packing Up
170 Packing Up the Past
(Winona)
Back in the old house, Jayden steps outside to make a call, leaving me alone with my mom and Cass.
"Mom, you need to pack what you need for a few nights. We're getting you and Cass out until the coast is
clear."
Mom hesitates, her hand lingering on the worn armrest of the couch. "This is my home, Winona. The only thing I have that's mine."
"It's dangerous right now, Mom. You know what can happen if they come here..."
Mom nods. "What were you doing, Cass? You're usually not that reckless."
"I'm sorry. I didn't think she was going to turn up and go all gangsta on me." Cass says and puts her arm around Mom. 7 shouldn't have run out on you like that "It's okay, Cass. It was a lot to take in. But it's better you know the truth."
"I'm pissed that you had to be that person. It isn't you, Mom. You know that don't you?"
Mom smiles and brushes her hand down Cass's arm. left all that in the past the day I knew you survived
cold turkey. I barely survived it. I knew then I'd give you every chance I could."
I feel a pang of loss and loneliness for not having that relationship with our mother.
"Sorry I'm such a fuck up."
"Don't say that, Cass. You just haven't found your thing yet. You will."
"It sure as hell ain't school. I'm never going to college."
"College was the best years of my life," I say.
Cass glares at me. "Who asked you?"
I feel like withering under her hostility, but I don't. "If it's money you're worried about, I can -g"
"I don't want your money. We're doing fine. School has been shit all my life, why would I want to go back?"
"What will you do then?"
"Get a job I guess, duh."
"Yeah, scrubbing toilets will be fun for the rest of your life." I answer, trying to encourage some interest in education.
"It was good enough for Mom for years, it's good enough for me."
I stare at Mom. "Oh god, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."
"You might have come from the streets, but you will never belong in our world again. You're the enemy,"
Cass says. "Part of the rich who have enough money to make sure no one needs to go hungry, but sharing isn't a part of the DNA. Blind eye syndrome." +25 BONUS
170 Packing Up the Past
I see Jayden shuffle his feet and pull at his collar.
"I don't think there's any need to assume you know anything about our lives either," I answer.
Cass shrugs. "How hard could it be? You have enough money to make anything possible. No doubt you'll throw a bunch of it at us and then we'll never see you again. Sounds great to me. I can't wait."
"Cass. I raised you better than to be rude. Winona hasn't had anything easy. Don't judge. You don't like being judged." Mom's voice is stern in reprimand.
Cass shrugs her shoulders again. "Sorry Mom." But her glare to me is still angry. "We gettin' out of here or what?"
"I'd like to, yes. Mom, is everything okay? Do you need another suitcase or something?"
Mom has been hesitating over packing anything. She looks around the room. "I know it's temporary but it's so hard to go elsewhere to sleep."
I can't wait to leave. The walls still whisper the horrors. "After everything that happened here, how can you be so attached to this place?" I ask softly, not wanting to sound judgy myself.
Mom's gaze drops to the floor, her voice trembling. "I'm scared to leave, Winona. It's all I've known for so long. The young woman that came here thirty years ago with hope to start a family.. before things went terribly wrong, I guess she's still lost in here somewhere." I see that she was the same as any naïve young woman, dreaming of the perfect life. A happy marriage. A family of her own. How did it go so terribly wrong?
"You mean, he was...he wasn't always like that?"
She shook her head. "When we first met, no. But there was no work, drugs came and then it was all downhill. But he had a history. I didn't know it at the time. By the time the truth came out, it was too late."
The emotion in her voice catches me off guard.
"Why? Why didn't you just leave him?" My voice comes out harsher than I intend, but I need to understand.
She sighs, her hands wringing in her lap. "I wanted to leave, but he fed me drugs. I couldn't leave with you because I had nowhere to go and no money. I was trapped. You have to understand, I couldn't think straight long enough to do anything other than what I was told."
I feel a surge of anger mixed with sadness as I try to process her words. I never fully understood how deep Steve's control over her was. "But after everything he did? Why not just run?"
She looks up at me, her eyes filled with pain. "Steve told me if I left, I'd never get you back. And if I did leave, he'd make you do what he made me do to make him money, I couldn't risk that."
"You were protecting me from something worse, the only way you could."
Today's Bonus Offer