IN BETWEEN IT ALL✧･ BARNES✔

˙oʍʇ-ʎʇuǝʍʇ

I didn't actually think it would. But maybe I would feel a bit better if I knew. 

Melina's silence told me that maybe my mother didn't actually want to know. Her silence seemed like she was trying to protect me, too. I knew that they both knew I was against the wall listening closely. 

"Dreykov had her killed." 

I wish I could describe the way that my emotion and my expression changed in that instant. But my face, it stayed the same. My emotions, I didn't even feel the shift. Maybe I had had this built in anger lasting in me for a while, because I didn't feel a transition in my emotion when she said the words. I just felt a mroe intense version of what I was already feeling. The sensation in my body became hotter, almost boiling, but I didn't know what to do about it. I didn't know how to react or what i should even say. My body felt weightless and I hardly felt myself move to step up behind Melina in the hallway. I didn't even know that I had done it until I was facing the back of her head. 

And I didn't feel the need to cry. I didn't even feel any of this anger much for myself. I grew up with a loving mother. I had the chance to do that, and I didn't have the chance to do a lot of things. Of course, I was infuriated by the fact that yet another one of the things that I didn't have like other kids was taken away by the one man that took almost everything from me. Another person, another life, another key thing I could have experienced as a young girl was yet again taken from me by Dreykov. But I was less angered by that, and more angered by the fact that not only did Dreykov assign my mother a fake mom to intensify that feeling of abandonment, but he took her real mother, too. She didn't even get a loving mother like I did. 

And if I needed any other reason to hate the man, this had to be it. 

"Her existence threatened to uncover the Red Room. Normally, the actions of the curious civilian wouldn't warrant an execution," Melina informed slowly, catering to how my mom was feeling at the moment. She had to look away. "But as I said, she was relentless."

My mom still couldn't bring her eyes to look back at Melina. It seemed like she was ashamed for some reason. :I thought about her every day of my life," she muttered like it would've made her come off as dumb if anyone could hear. 

She bit her lip and looked around to anything but the two of us. "Whether or not I admit it to myself, I did." She nods her head like she's coming to a realization and is accepting it.

Melina carefully stepped forward as if she was afraid that my mother wouldn't let her. 

"I've always found it best not to look into the past," she offered. And maybe all of us needed to live by that. 

My mom seemingly disregarded the words as she reached up for an album on the shelf. She knew exactly where to look and she grabbed it immediately. 

I became curious. She had to know exactly what was in it. 

"Then why did you save this?" She questioned almost accusingly, holding it up for Melina to see. I stepped forward, coming from behind Melina slowly. I was afraid of how my mom would react if I tried to come closer and into the line of fire between them, but I couldn't help my curiosity. I wanted to get a better look at what she was holding. 

Melina didn't respond right away. When I was standing beside my mom, I glanced up at her briefly. She stared back at my mom like she didn't really want to respond. She stared back at her like maybe the answer was one that she had never planned on sharing with anyone.

Mama and I held our eyes on hers, waiting to hear her say something. Anything at all. But my mom grew impatient and instead looked back down at what seemed to be a photo album. It was embroidered with pretty flowers all over the front, all different colors. To me, it meant that there had to be something just as whole-hearted or beautiful inside.