Page 51 of Love on the Edge
Relief should come. It doesn’t.
“She just… stops listening,” CC whispers. “She looks at her phone. She walks away. Sometimes she acts like I’m not even there.”
I can’t breathe. I should’ve known. I should have seen it.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, voice barely above a whisper.
She hesitates, and when she finally speaks, her words are so soft, so fragile, I almost don’t hear them. “Because I thought you were happy.”
The breath leaves my lungs.
She thought I was happy with Margo. Until the day she walked out and didn’t look back. That if she told me—if she admitted how she felt—she would ruin that for me.
My arms tighten around her, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, my voice low but firm. “Listen to me.”
She sniffles, curling closer into my chest.
“You don’t have to see her if you don’t want to. Okay?”
She doesn’t answer at first. Then, barely above a whisper, “But she’s my mom.”
The ache in her voice is unbearable.
I close my eyes, swallowing hard. “I know, baby. But a mom is supposed to make you feel safe. A mom is supposed to love you, take care of you. If she’s not doing that, then you don’t have to see her just because she’s your mom.”
CC doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Then, finally, she exhales, her small shoulders sagging as the tension drains from her tiny frame. “I wanna go to bed, Daddy.”
I kiss her hair. “Okay, baby. Let’s get you tucked in.”
I walk her to her room, pulling the covers up around her, smoothing a hand over her back. But as I step out of her room and close the door, a slow, burning anger spreads through my chest.
Margo doesn’t get to do this to her.
She doesn’t get to waltz back in, pick CC up like a trophy she abandoned, and expect her to shine.
She doesn’t get to keep doing this. She sure as hell doesn’t get to win.
I take out my phone to call my parents, but the doorbell rings. I sigh, running a hand over my face, hoping to God it isn’t Margo.
My next sigh is one of relief as I see Nina, Drew, Ryan, and my parents. It takes a second, but there’s two additional people behind them; Ana Lucia and Emilio Blaze.
Wordlessly, I step aside, letting them in, and shut the door behind us.
Emilio clears his throat, his expression tense as he holds up his phone. “We’re not here for a good reason.”
My stomach sinks.
On the screen—Margo. Sitting in my parents’ house, staring into the camera.
CC inhales sharply beside me, her little voice barely a whisper. “Oh no…”
I press play.
She inhales shakily, then lets out a slow, measured breath, staring directly into the camera.
"I wasn’t going to do this." Her voice wavers, but there’s steel beneath the vulnerability. "But I can’t sit back and let people keep worshiping someone who doesn’t deserve it. Someone who destroyed my family."
A pause. A perfect, calculated pause.
