Help Me Remember (COMPLETED)

Chapter 42 Part 2

This is the Promised Chapter.

Chapter 42 Part 2

Mother

I was shaking. Staring into my phone screen and seeing a shared screenshot of the full article on The Mag that had thrown my life into sudden and complete hell. It was just my luck that someone had the mind to do that before it was deleted from the online magazine site.

It was well-versed, actually. It was written in the complete format of the way Sarah had told those three girls in bathroom and maybe even worse. They had described me as some kind of exhibitionist who craved eyes on her naked body. That if the dean hadn't come, I would've been glorifying in the feel of a room full of men watching me and thinking unspeakable things about me.

That false journalism didn't even state any solid proof of their claim.

No. The media didn't take that route.

Instead, these "reporters" had dug through skeletons in m family closet and threw it into sunlight for all to see.

I heard a crack. But as I looked down at the phone in my hand and the tight grip I had on it, I wasn't really shocked. I was feeling weak, my mind spinning with everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

After that scene in the dean's office, I was shipped back home and locked in my room.

My father had refused to talk to me, listen my side.

Daddy wouldn't even look at me.

After that breakdown, he'd turned stone-cold.

"Your father had that article taken down," his secretary had explained lowly in my ear as he escorted me in the airport.

My head had snapped in his direction, "W-what? How—?"

The look on Chris's face told me everything. Even he believed the worst, "What are you trying to prove acting like your mother?"

My mom.

And just like that, I was thrown back to my past.

"Mom?"

I stood in the dark hallway in front of my parents' bedroom door, hugging the teddy bear bought me from his last business trip. The five-year old child willing herself not to cry as she repeatedly knocked on the door, calling out to her mother.

It was raining outside. A storm was what my teacher called it. The wind howled and a branch repeatedly tapped against my window. I could sleep because of the noise.

There was also the lightning. As soon as I thought that, a lightning lit up the place. The hallway filling with elongated shadows making my heart pound.

And where there was lightning... thunder was sure to follow.

I screamed in time for the rumbling noise. With small fists, I thumped harder against the door calling out to my mommy. I was crying at that point. My teddy bear forgotten at my feet.

The door was flung open and I stumbled inside the room.

"What is it at this hour—?"

I scrambled to stand and hug my mommy's legs. Before I could burry my head into her night dress, she'd pulled me by the arm and pushed me back.

"I don't have time for this," she let out an annoyed growl as she let me go.

The child-me was scared, confused as she looked up at her mommy. Tears were brimming her eyes, "Mommy, I can't sleep."