SCARLETT
“No!” I sprung to my feet, tears welling in my eyes. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. I wanted to rewind ten minutes because the lie was better than the truth. “I… How could you…? Shit, I was…” I didn’t know what I wanted to say. There were too many questions whizzing through my mind to pick one to concentrate on. They were going to kill me.
“Please, Scarlett,” Mum said, standing and holding her hands up. “We’re sorry. It was never going to happen. We’d never have let them go through with it. We love you so much. It doesn’t matter where you came from. You’re our daughter.”
She took a step closer and I backed up, the backs of my legs hitting the sofa. I held my hand up. Over the last few months, my head had hurt from trying to remember everything but that paled in comparison to how I felt now. I felt like I’d just had my whole world tipped upside down.
“I need to leave,” I said and rushed out of the room.
My parents shouted my name, but Jeremy told them to let me go. Noah followed and I was glad. I didn’t want to be alone, but I didn’t want to be around someone who had betrayed me.
I collapsed on my bed in a daze. It couldn’t be true. It was too… A cult. How could they have been in a cult? One that I was going to be killed in? Surely things like that didn’t actually happen? But they wouldn’t have made that up. It was far too much.
“Are you okay?” Noah asked, lying down behind me and bundling me up in his arms.
“No,” I replied. “I’m not dreaming, right?” I muttered, staring at my wall as I tried to make sense of something that was so senseless.
He shook his head against mine. He’d barely said a word. He was probably thinking of the best way to break up with me and get the hell out.
“You’re not dreaming. I wish you were.”
“It doesn’t make sense.”
“No,” he replied.
“I think I would’ve believed them more if they’d told me we were vampires.”
“You can go out in the sunlight,” he said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
“What am I going to do?”
Shrugging, he replied, “I don’t know. I can’t get my head around what they said. What do you want to do?”
“I’ve no idea. No, actually I do. I want to rewind time to before the car accident and leave my grandparents’ house later. I want for it not to be true. I want to go back to a time when everything was simple. I hate this, Noah,” I said and started to sob. “I hate this and I just want to be normal.”
He held me tighter and let me cry. I completely lost it, sobbing until I could barely breathe. He’d been too quiet and distracted since we found out my whole life had been a complete messed-up lie. I was scared of what I’d been told, scared of what it meant now, and scared that Noah would leave and I wouldn’t have any normality in my life.
“Are you going to run? I wouldn’t blame you at all,” I asked once I’d calmed down enough that I wasn’t gasping for breath anymore.
“No, I’m not going to run. I love you, Scarlett, no matter what. I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered into my hair.
I turned around and clung to him, his words setting me off again, and I cried until I literally couldn’t shed another tear. My heart was breaking. My parents weren’t my parents, my whole life was one big lie, and I was almost murdered before I turned four.
Noah stayed with me until I’d calmed down. He looked stressed and tired but he’d been amazing, everything I needed. We lay side by side on my bed, with him playing with and stroking my fingers. It was calming.
“How are you feeling now?” he asked.
“I don’t know if there’s a word to describe it. Shocked, betrayed, hurt, confused all come close.”
“You’re going to be all right.”
I sure didn’t feel like I was going to be all right. I didn’t know how to even process what they’d told me, let alone come to terms with it. “Yeah, how do you know that?”
“Because I won’t give you another option. I won’t pretend to understand how you are feeling, but I know that there is nothing I wouldn’t do to make things better.”
Closing my eyes, I turned on my side and snuggled closer to him. “I’m going to miss you this weekend. You always manage to put things into perspective for me.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
“No, you’re excited to see your friends again. Besides, I’ve got a lot to get my head around.”
“I know, but if you need me to help you get your head around it…”
He was so sweet, always thinking about me first, but now I had the chance to do something for him, and letting him go home without guilt was exactly what he needed.
“I do, but this isn’t going to get better in a weekend, Noah. Maybe time alone will help me, and when you’re back, things might be clearer and then you can help me move on.” It all sounded so simple. I didn’t even buy my own words, so there was no way he would either.
“I still don’t like to leave you when you’re upset.”
“That’s exactly why I love you so much. You spend time with your family, and I’ll work on talking things through with mine.”
He rolled to his side so we were facing each other. When his fingertips brushed my chin, I took a deep breath. He made me feel so many things all at once, and even though sometimes the intensity of those feelings scared me, I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
“I love you, Scarlett,” he whispered, and claimed my lips.