LOVE BUG

CHAPTER 57: CRIMES

Why has she said this out loud?! 

"Ana, mon ange, what do you mean? You're scaring me?" Her mom's calm tone echoes almost as much as the silence following.

She has already talked too much. It is like the words have been pushed out of her chest under the crushing weight of guilt and pulled out by her mom's gaze looking for the truth. She knows her too much anyway.

"Anastasia?" She searches for her eyes through the mirror, and Anastasia is well-aware that she won't be able to put up another lie in front of them. Her mouth has already let out too much and taken a decision with a few words.

So she takes a deep breath, which of course, doesn't reach her lungs through her closed-off throat and compressed ribcage, and she turns to face her mom.

"I will tell you. But first, I need to ask you a question."

Her mom nods softly, probably noticing the distress growing on her daughter's frown, and it just confirms to Anastasia that the confession which has escaped her chest is not totally mindless. If there is one person she can trust to let it all out, it's her mom.

"Have you... Have you ever felt attracted toward someone else than Dad?" Her shaky fingers are instinctively playing with her new pendant as she waits expectantly for her mom's answer.

She remembers too well what has happened the last time she has tried to talk about forbidden matters, and the lump growing in her throat would still remind her if she didn't. Yet her mom doesn't snap or tense like her dad has last time. She just let out a heavy sigh, maybe as resigned as Anastasia in front of her hazel eyes, which are piercing for the truth the same way as hers.

"Yes, I have," she pauses, leaning against the console table behind her. "I hadn't been matched yet. I was barely 18, and I met this boy at my cousin's birthday party... and I don't know... it just flashed..." 

The hint of a smile forms on her lips, and Anastasia tries to picture the scene as her mom's eyes are gleaming with the memory. 

"I think he felt it too because we spent the whole night talking," she concludes, but Anastasia is left hanging, her pragmatic brain wanting to know more, or maybe it is her heart?

"And?" she presses as her mom doesn't seem to tell more.

"And that's all." Her mom shrugs, her gaze coming back with seriousness to her daughter. "Nothing else happened. I never saw him again, and I learned that he got matched a few months later."

Anastasia's chest tightens to crush her thudding heart a little bit more. She should have known that there is no happy ending, and at least, this one hasn't ended in cruel pains.

"Do you regret it?" She has promised for one question, but her mom's answer has hit too close to home, to her heart, and not only because of the emotions she glimpses in her green gaze.

Regret is also a question she has asked herself a billion times, but her mom's story has just confirmed that her answer will always be the same: No, she doesn't regret it. She regrets the law, defending this unfairness and the reason for so many sad endings. She regrets not having the choice. But she doesn't regret meeting Nathaniel, neither walking the line and breaking the law. 

She can't even imagine a possibility where she would have not given in to the attraction. Nearing death in that steam room has been worth it, since it has made her realize why she has a beating heart.

"It's the law. I never had a choice." Her mom pulls her back to the cold reality, and her simple shrug makes it look like breaking the law has never even crossed her mind, reminding Anastasia that no matter how pure it feels, it is a crime. "But I don't regret anything in my life because I've got the most beautiful thing I could ever wish for: two amazing children." She smiles sincerely, and Anastasia can only avoid her shining gaze.