Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 56

If you aren't familiar with the board game Monopoly, I'd go figure out what it is now. The next chapter, thee Monopoly Chapter, will include some heavy references to the game. It's going to be hilarious, and it's going to be epic. Any predictions? 

I hope that ya'll have a great week! As always, do enjoy. And follow me on Instagram @Natthefantastic !!!

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"I'm—I'm sorry," I tell Mom again, stuttering and hiccupping through the apology. Gasping, I try and fail to get enough oxygen into my lungs so that I might say why I'm sorry.

When she realized a few moments later that I wasn't tearing up but spiraling into hysteria as I covered my entire face with her tissue, Gisa pulled me up by my arms, walked me across the room, and shoved me into the hallway.

She did something similar with Mom, who ended up beside me a matter of seconds later. My sister, then commandeering Mister Calore's office, pushed the heavy doors shut behind us.

"Not as sorry—sorry as I am," Mom returns, no better off than I am.

After I realized that Maven, Cal, Elara, Carmadon, Gisa, and the reporter could likely hear us weeping through the doors, I walked with Mom to the three-stall women's bathroom down the hall and around a turn. With class in session, nobody will bother us, even as our stumbled-out words and sobs echo across the bathroom tiles.

I cling to Mom like I never have before. Her arms loop over mine in a tight tug so that our chests are squeezed together, and my face is thoroughly buried in the shoulder of her sweater. As I continue to lose it, falling deeper into this emotional-frenzied pit of remorse and anger and pure-euphoria, I try to focus on that clean-linen scent of her sweater, its cable-knit pattern pressing into my cheek.

My head pounds from the exhaustion of crying. My nose runs. My throat stings.

We've never hugged like this. Not in a time that I can remember.

And some part of me that knows that I still desperately need my mom.

All I've ever wanted is her approval. Her praise. It means more that she's proud of me than an auditorium of eight-hundred applauding for me does.

"I should've at least taken the front door out," I say in a gasp of clarity. It dissolves into more crying. As I shake in Mom's arms, I try to get a handle on myself. I try to stand tall, stuff my sobs down my throat, and blink rapidly to stop the tears that are literally wetting Mom's sweater None of it works. "But I—I snuck out the window. Like—like a coward."

I'm like a dam that's been holding in water. I've been building up grievances against my parents for years, tucking them away in some dark and bitter place inside of my heart.

I'm finally letting it all out.

Mom never understood, never bothered to try to understand. As long as I was pickpocketing for a cause that seemed to her a dead-end, she never approved of ballet.

Dad hasn't seen me dance in five years.

It was so easy at the time to leave them for all that I have here.

It's finally hurting. My heart seems to beat in time with the sobs that rattle out of me.

"Neither of us can fix the past, Mare," Mom coos, managing a few more words. Her bony hands hold onto me like a vice, and I swear that if it wasn't for her, I'd crumble to the ground and drown in my own tears. "But we can move on and be a part of each other's lives again. And—and I'm so—so proud of—of you."