Beauty and the Bad Boy

Chapter 16

Amber POV

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I wasn't sure if I had heard her correctly. That tall, grey-eyed man was actually my father? My father whom I had never even met before?

I counted to ten before I next spoke. "What did he want?"

Mom pressed her lips together in a thin line. She looked like she wanted to cry again, but had run out of tears. Heck, I wanted to cry but I knew I had to be strong for my mother. My mother only deserved the best, why did awful things keep happening to her?

A surge of love and protectiveness shot through me and I wanted to hug and comfort her like she had done for me countless times.

"I made a-a mistake, seventeen years ago," mom slowly started. My stomach flipped over; I was seventeen. "I-I left him. He lost his job, and he couldn't find a new one no matter what. It took so long. Months, maybe even a year?"

Speechless, I continued staring at my mother with confused eyes. All this time I was under the impression that my father had left us and that he was a despicable human being. Now, it seemed as if my whole life was a lie and my mother wasn't the delicate, perfect person I thought she was.

When I didn't say anything, mom kept going. "So, when you were less than a year old, I left. I packed up everything, and left with you. And then we started a new life."

And so that was the story, I guess. But something didn't add up. "Mom," I asked, almost talking in a whisper, "what's the real reason we moved?"

Mom's hazel eyes looked darker than usual. "Because he had found me. He sent me an email and told me that he wanted to meet up. So I left Andrew, and we were off."

I remember when mom told me that she and Andrew were over. I remember being confused when mom told me to pack everything quietly and then leaving at 3am when Andrew was asleep.

"You married Andrew so my father couldn't find you?" I asked, in shock.

She nodded, and kept her gaze focused on her hands, which were neatly folded in her lap.

What did she expect, that I wasn't going to be furious at her?

Standing up, I announced that I needed some air. When mom left my room, I quickly packed a bag with my pajamas, toiletries, all of my savings, and other essentials. I flew out of my room in a dazed mess and fled to my car.

Jiggling the handle, I found it was locked. Why wasn't it opening? At the time, I didn't think about unlocking it with the keys because of how in shock I was.

Letting out loud, disgusting sobs, I kept trying to open the stupid car door, when the last person I wanted to see came out to check on me.

"Amber, what's wrong?" Ryder demanded, trying to pull me away from the door.

Pushing him off, I ignored him, and kept yanking at the door's handle.

"Amber, look at me! You're scaring me!" Ryder kept reiterating. When he realized I wasn't going to listen to him, he forcefully took my wrists and pinned me against the car, forcing me to look at him.

I could feel how warm he was and felt every breath he was taking. My chest was rapidly moving up and down. We stayed in that position for what felt like forever but was realistically only about five minutes.