His Queen (18+)

Chapter I

THE VISIT

❝Tell me, how do you sleep when you lie to me?❞

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CHAPTER I

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I MUST'VE REALLY liked Doctor David. And I meant liked him more than the measly, little crush I had seemed to develop towards him because there was no other logical reason to explain why I had agreed to do this today.

Not that me liking him was a logical reason, but it was better than the one about hypnosis.

“A good way to feel at peace with yourself and move on from your past is to talk to the person you most detest,” I mocked him from my seat, scrunching up my face and making my voice deeper than normal.

I didn't need closure to move on. I needed to bury my head in my work until I forgot my heartache. I needed to secure another bag.

Not my mother.

Yet, there I was anyway.

I breathed out the negatives and breathed in the positives thoughts like Doctor David, my therapist, had thought me to do. As much as I liked to deny it, he was right. The only problem was there were no positive thoughts.

In that moment, sitting in Derek's white, eye-catching Cadillac in front of the dingy bungalow my mother who I hadn't seen for nine years resided in, I could think of nothing positive. It was all negativity.

If I had a choice, I wouldn't have even been there, but I needed answers to fully move on. I couldn't deny it. I had enough on my plate juggling a job that had ne working most hours of the day and a toddler. The last thing I needed was the lack of sleep from all the questions and anxiety the lack of answers were giving me.

I had put this off for two years, but it was now or never.

It's not like she wasn't expecting me anyway. The private investigator had to approach her first and acquire her consent for me to see her.

Not that she had much of a choice at all, I was still going to show up whether she liked it or not. In fact, she should've been thanking God that I was just as much of a wimp as she had proven herself to be.

I sighed again, scolding myself for always losing track of my thoughts. I picked up the small passport picture and smiled at the adorable grin on Teo's face before throwing it in my bag and finally opening the door.

I stepped out, taking note of how my car was probably going to get its windows smashed if I took too long. The neighbourhood looked like the type that you speed-walked through at night so you didn't get jumped.

The only cars that lined the road were beaten up and looked liked they dated all the way back from the nineties. Some houses had shattered windows which were replaced by either cardboard or a bin bag. Thankfully, that wasn't the case with the house in front of me.

I felt like I was being watched even though I was the only person standing outside. I shook the feeling off. There was no point in acting surprised when I couldn't stick out anymore than I had made myself. If it wasn't my car, it was my clothes.

I didn't know who I was trying to impress with my tight-fitting white dress and white thigh-high boots but it definitely wasn't doing much for the people in the neighbourhood, watching me through the cracks in their curtains.

They could've at least come out and said hello.

I held my head up high and closed the car door, making sure to lock it as if that would make a difference before walking up the cracked pavement towards the front door. I pressed the bell, but after a minute of waiting with no sound coming from it, I realised that the bell probably didn't work.