Shut Up And Kiss Me (gxg)

49. F*ck the Mafia

MONROE'S POV - TWO YEARS AGO

      "HOW ARE YOU FEELING, MISS?" 

      The glass of the car's window pane was cool against my temple. The driver was from Social Services―an elderly man by the name of Wilhelm, who told me he'd once been in the police force. We'd been traveling for almost twelve hours, and I hadn't slept since the airplane ride here. 

      How am I feeling?  Well, Wilhelm, my whole family is dead. What do you think?  But I didn't open my mouth, didn't meet his gaze in the rearview mirror, didn't do anything but close my eyes. Maybe this was the dream, and when I woke up, I'd be able to see Dad driving the car instead. Mom in the passenger seat, green eyes bright, teasing him.

      But they were dead, and it was my fault.

     My fault, for winning that stupid award, for wanting them to see, to know about it. All I'd wanted was for my parents to be proud of me. Now I had nothing left but a half-packed luggage and a grandma I'd never even met.

     I'd begged, pleaded, cried―none of it had persuaded Social Services. 

     Let me stay with Aaron, I'd said. Let me stay with my uncle. I don't want to go. This is my home. 

     I was fifteen, turning sixteen, but I may as well have been a small child throwing a tantrum. My father's will specifically stated, on the condition that he and Mom died, I would stay with Grandma Angel. Permanently. So it didn't matter that my uncle was the better choice, that going to live with her would mean leaving my hometown and my high school: I would be escorted to Dallas, Texas, even if it meant they'd have to stuff me in the back of the trunk and hog-tie me the whole way there.

      My only option was a legal battle, and I didn't have the money or the motivation for it. The determination, along with the begging and the tears, had slowly been leaching out of me. Fading away with the landscape.

      Aaron seemed so far away. My life seemed so far away.

     "You'll be alright, you know," said Wilhelm's gruff voice. "You're a tough girl."

     Again, I didn't speak. You don't know anything about me. Anything. The words didn't―couldn't―come. 

     Within another hour, the car slowed to a final stop. Gravel crunched beneath the tires, tree branches snapping against the windows. I was going to laugh if I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of nowhere, about to be murdered by the soft-spoken Child Services agent. At least I'd get to see my parents again.

     But . . . it wasn't a desolate stretch of forest, ripe with shadows and places to hide a body. 

     I opened the car door, forgetting about my suitcase entirely. The tree branches weren't just trees―they were cherry blossoms. Pink and white, blooming with muted colour. They concealed a large, cottage-like house from view: stony walls and enormous, sun-bright windows. Leading up to the house, I noticed a thin, colourful walkway. And a woman with hair as dark as mine, although her eyes seemed to glow golden rather than green. Kneeling in the earth, gloves up to her wrists, she looked up at me and smiled. 

     It was dazzling, that smile. She had to be at least seventy, but the light still twinkled in her eyes like she'd only recently been up to mischief. 

     I didn't move. There was no way this was real. Cherry blossoms and a field and a cottage. Where the hell was I? Maybe this was an elaborate kidnapping plan, and I'd be hauled off into the basement any moment now.