[COMPLETED]
❝Death is inevitable. It's a promise made to us at birth.❞
Arielle is a studious young woman striving to be a chef. Her life is full of going to class, reading textbooks, and hanging out with her friends, until she meets Zayn. Zayn's an...
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➳ ARIELLE'S POV
"Ari, Ari," I wake when I feel my arm being violently shaken, like I'm in some horrendous dream. When I open my eyes, I find Zoe staring closely at me, making me feel like a fish in a public aquarium. I groan with annoyance and attempt to roll over, but she just yanks on my arm so that I'm facing her. "Get up!" She moans, annoyed and impatient.
I run my hands over my face and look at her through eyes that are laced with sleep. "What?" I snap, still overwhelmed with the conversation—if you could call it one—that I had with Jayden before coming up to my room. It was the whole reason I'd thrown myself on the bed without talking to Zoe, but she obviously didn't know that.
She rolls her eyes and takes a step back. "I'm sorry, it's kinda' urgent and you've been sleeping for like, two hours and I can't wait any longer." she murmurs out much too quickly for my brain to register.
"What?" I sit myself up in bed, rubbing more sleep out of my eyes.
"It's about earlier today. Remember when you came home, and I said I needed to tell you something?" Zoe asks as she sits on the edge of her bed and stares at me, waiting for a response.
"Get on with it, Zoe," the phrase comes out with a lot more attitude than I'd intended for as I begin stretching on the bed to help wake myself up.
She rolls her eyes, "Your mom and dad were here."
"What?" I choke out. "That's impossible." Am I still dreaming?
"No, I'm serious. A woman came to the room looking for you and when I said you weren't here, she said she was your mother, and then I watched her out the window and she left with a man." Zoe picks at the skin around her nails, but nothing she's saying is making any sense to me.
"I'm sure you're mistaken," I respond, adding, "My mother doesn't even know that I'm in Florida."
"No," Zoe shakes her head, "She definitely said she was your mother."
What in the hell is going on? How did my mother find me?
"Well, then she wasn't with my father. It's obviously one of her boyfriends." I put my head in my hands and sigh, "What'd she want?"
"She was wearing a wedding ring, so I just assumed that was your dad she was with, I'm sorry. But she—"
"She's married?" I interrupt, eyebrows raised in shock. I guess I shouldn't be shocked, the woman goes through husbands faster than I go through cell phones.
Zoe looks up at me, "She had a big rock on her hand so I'm guessing so, yeah."
"Huh," I say aloud, pondering who she managed to trick into her evil little cobweb of toxicity.
"You didn't know?"
"Uh, no." The words are awkward on my tongue, but not because of the fact that she didn't tell me. I would never expect her to. It's the fact that I don't want anybody to question me on why my mother wouldn't tell me about such a significant moment in her life. Zoe opens her mouth to say something, but I speak before she can interject, "What exactly did she say?"
