My Boyfriend and Brother Left Me in the Escape Room novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: My Name Is Veronica

My mother stood in front of Lyla with her sleeves pushed up.

Lyla knelt at her feet, her gown spread out around her, her face wrecked.

"Mom, please. Please."

"Don't call me that."

My mother said it very quietly into a stage microphone that was not hers.

The ballroom heard every word.

"I raised you for twenty years," she said. "I taught you to ride a bike and I held your hair when you were sick. I sat up with you the week your sponsor left you in tears."

"Then you can't just-"

"I did not know you." She breathed in. "And I did not know my daughter, because I would not look at her."

She turned around. She came across the stage in her stocking feet, and she stopped in front of me.

Her chin trembled. I had never once seen it do that.

"Veronica," she said. "I am sorry."

The whole room waited.

"I told you to apologize for being locked in a dark cell. I told you to make less noise. I took your key off the table and I did not even pick it up."

"You did," I said. "You left it where it fell."

"I did." Her voice broke. "I'm so sorry."

I looked at her face, small and lined and unguarded under the white lanterns.

I wanted to put my arms around her. I wanted to throw the microphone at the wall.

"I heard you," I said. "I'm not ready to say it's okay."

She nodded, quick and hard.

"Ask me again at Sunday dinner," I said. "With the ham. We'll see."

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