Her words had broken her heart. She knew about her attraction towards girls; but like every mother, she had just hoped for it to be a phase. When she had started acting out, she hadn’t been fooled, she knew it was about her girlfriend leaving. But she just couldn’t accept it. It didn’t feel real. And when she learnt that Annabelle thought she had found love with her fifteen year older Literature teacher, it had been just more than she could take.

But she missed her daughter. Since she had thrown Simone out, she had started realizing they both cared about the other. They simply were in love. Of course she couldn’t let that happen to her political career; but she couldn’t let that happen to Annabelle as well. Somehow, she was convinced the woman would break her heart. And so she waited, patiently, for Annabelle to come home one day, crying as her heart would be freshly wounded.

It had been two weeks since she had given Annabelle an ultimatum. And she couldn’t look herself in a mirror since she had done so. What had been the fear of seeing her career ruined and her baby girls heart broken had turned into a deep hate towards the unethical teacher. She now wanted to make the woman miserable as she felt so herself. Deep down, she knew she wasn’t the one to blame for her daughter’s absence of feelings for her, but she was more than happy to assume so.

She had all the power to break Simone Bradley, and so she would. She’d be here to welcome her daughter back.

Annabelle never told Simone what happened with her mother. Simone had tried to get her to tell everything, but Annabelle made it the first secret she had actually kept from her. Despite her guilt, she knew it was better off this way; Simone wasn’t ready to hear everything just now; maybe not ever. All she wanted was to live a life with her and spare her pain if she could avoid it. She didn’t want lies and secret to be the way to do so; but in this case, it was the only way. They had their home, they were happy, they didn’t need to be burdened with anything else. After all, they deserved their happiness together and she’d give her own life before having it taken away from them.