Chapter 6
The next few weeks were a whirlwind.
Newspapers ran the story on the front page.
ORPHANED BURN SURVIVOR EXPOSES AUNT’S ARSON AND FRAUD AT OWN WEDDING.
It went viral.
People all over the country sent me messages.
Survivors of abuse. Of fires. Of family members who’d hurt them.
Telling me my story gave them hope.
Telling me they were going to fight back too.
It was overwhelming.
Good overwhelming.
But hard, too.
Some nights I still woke up screaming.
Dreaming of flames. Of Beatrice’s face in the smoke. Of being trapped, burning, no one coming to save me.
Liam was always there.
He’d hold me.
Rock me.
Whisper to me until my heart stopped racing.
Until I remembered I was safe.
I was in his arms.
No one could hurt me ever again.
A week after the wedding, Liam’s mom, Margaret, showed up at the penthouse with a Tupperware of my favorite chocolate chip cookies and a nervous look on her face.
I’d been wary of her at first.
She’d been so quiet at the wedding.
So shocked by Beatrice’s comments that she’d frozen, not said a word in my defense.
She set the cookies down on the kitchen counter.
Turned to me.
Hands twisting in her silk blouse.
“Audrey,” she said, her voice thick. “I owe you the biggest apology of my life.”
I waited.
“When Beatrice said those things,” she said, tears filling her eyes, “I was so stunned. So horrified. I just… froze. I should have stood up. I should have yelled. I should have done something. And I didn’t. And I will hate myself for that for the rest of my life.”
She reached out, then stopped, like she was scared to touch me.
“Liam told me everything,” she said. “Everything she did to you. Everything you went through. You are the bravest, strongest person I have ever met. And I would be so, so proud to call you my daughter.”
My throat tightened.
I stepped forward and hugged her.
She held me tight, crying soft into my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” she kept saying. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” I said, and for the first time, I meant it. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon eating cookies and talking.
She told me stories about Liam when he was little.
How he’d always been the kid who stood up for the ones no one else would.
How he’d come home from our first date, grinning like an idiot, and told her he was going to marry me one day.
By the time she left, I felt like I’d gained a mom.
Something I hadn’t had in so long I’d forgotten what it felt like.
That night, I lay in Liam’s arms, watching the city lights.
“Your mom is amazing,” I said.
He kissed the top of my head.
“Told you she’d come around,” he said. “She just needed to get over being an idiot for five minutes.”
I laughed.
May you like
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I laughed until my sides hurt.
And when I fell asleep that night, I didn’t have a single nightmare.
