❝ You make this messed-up world look so much more beautiful. ❞ Gathering me in his arms, he pulled me close -- his lips seeking mine hungrily.
────────────────
The only thing Summer Hale has ever wanted was to live peacefully away from her secrets...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I like myself when it's over But later in the light, you go Dark and rogue, and I need closure — Lose by Niki
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
My insides tightened as I read the first letter that my mother wrote for the umpteenth time today. I was yet to know the truth that she wanted me to find, and I was starting to get restless. Samantha told me that once I received the yearbooks, I could come clean to my friends about what bothered me. She meant my mother's death since they all believed she was in New York, managing her store. But what bothered me was everything about who I was as a person.
I wasn't ready to become the person my mother wanted me to be.
I spent my life hidden behind a door I wasn't allowed to open, and my mother made sure I stayed hidden. She gave me a life that allowed me to enjoy living like a regular person.
My mother rarely attended fancy gatherings. When she did, she always went as my grandparents' assistant. All of her public conferences were managed by Samantha, and all the CEOs and Chairman's she had meetings with signed contracts never to disclose information about her. Whenever there was a leak in the media, it would disappear in under half an hour — forever gone and untraceable.
Everyone I went with in high school knew my mother as someone who owned a convenience store. Olivia and Travis were the only exceptions. Olivia, mainly, was the only exception; she was the only one I truly trusted. Travis found out about my mother when I was under the influence of alcohol. But they didn't rat me out to anyone because of the power my mother had. She controlled their families in a way that I didn't fully understand. I knew they feared her, but it was like she held them at gunpoint, and they had no other choice but to obey her orders.
A few days after my mother passed away, Samantha had both Olivia and Travis, including their families, sign a contract. The contract stated that both parties must never disclose any information about Sarah Hale. If the agreement were breached, then severe consequences would take place.
At the time, I was too busy wallowing in self-pity to bother knowing what the consequences were. When I called Olivia after our encounter at Pops, she told me what they were, and to put it simply, it was blood.
