I froze, too stunned to even speak.
Lilith was… my mother?
My mother. As in… my very much dead mother who I had never truly gotten to know because she had passed away when I was just a baby.
For a moment, it seemed so absurd and impossible that I almost laughed out loud. I nearly expected Alexander, Sophia, and anyone else who might have been in on the joke to come out from behind a bush and start laughing with me, or perhaps at me.
But then I thought back to the years I’d spent with Lilith. The late–night talks. The moments when I had felt so connected to my friend that I had genuinely thought of her as a mother to me. The times when I had literally told her that I saw her that way.
Lilith had told me once that her daughter was still out there, alive and well, but she couldn’t tell her that she had been watching over her for years.
勳
At the time, I thought it was Lilith’s nerves getting the best of her; perhaps she felt guilty for abandoning
her daughter and feared that her daughter would turn her away if she revealed herself.
But now… Now, it all made sense in sickening clarity.
Lilith was my mother.
the daughter she didn’t reveal herself to… Because she literally
the consequences.
so small, like a child’s voice. As if, for the briefest of seconds, I had reverted
and pulled me close again. This time, I didn’t hesitate. I wrapped my arms
can’t believe it’s you–after all these
comfort. No wonder it worked so well each time. Nothing could ever compare to a mother’s touch. “I know, sweetheart. I always wished I could tell
was?” I asked. Lilith had only known me as long as I had been married to Alexander, so as far as I knew, she had only
1/3
Chapter 232
+15 BONUS
watched you since you were a little girl. Do you remember
it hit me–a familiar face peering down at me through the water when I nearly drowned in
her lifting me from the shallow
the woman, beautiful and warm and safe, had whispered as she held me against
you?”
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