CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO. ✧ ೃ༄
❝ THE WELL-NEEDED APOLOGY. ❞

▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄▀▄

"I don't wanna go, Miss Maira."

Angelica was currently whining to the maid, her eyebrows furrowed as she pouted like a child. She was holding onto her phone tightly while the other gripped the fork that she was using to eat, clearly not happy about what's going to happen.

"You have to," Miss Maira tried to reassure her as best as she could, eyeing the bags under the girl's eyes from lack of sleep. "Now, just remember that you have that sleepover today, so... Just focus on the fact that as soon as you're finished there, you are going to the store to buy junk food."

"That's true," Angelica mused, nodding as she squinted her eyes, grabbing the tortilla Miss Maira gave her to eat the scrambled eggs with. "Fine. Let me quickly eat this and I'll head on over there."

Silence invaded the two other than the music Miss Maira had put on so she could cook and clean. Angelica kept spacing off, wondering what they will talk about. I mean, she's had therapy and she had the best therapist who did help her a lot, so then why was she nervous? Well, her mom was going to be there and Angelica has never told her mom at all what she felt.

"Alright," Angelica stood up, going to wash her dish before the older woman took it away from her. "But, I need to wash—"

"No, you're slacking, go."

Angelica groaned and grabbed her keys, walking towards the door and shuffling her feet. She turned around and waved goodbye at Miss Maira before ascending down the stairs of the front house, quickly getting into her car.

As she drove to the clinic which, surprisingly, allowed her mom and therapist to be in the same room, she quickly checked in and waited nervously, leg shaking up and down. She played with her hands, roughly hurting her skin as if to distract her, hoping the seat she was sitting on would swallow her.

"Victoria?"

Perking you at her real name being called, the girl smiled at the nurse under her mask. The nurse led the girl towards the room her mom and therapist were in and watched nervously as the nurse knocked on the door.

"Come in."

The nurse opened the door and let Angelica go first before turning to leave. Angelica stood in front of her mom's therapist and her mom, puffing her cheeks out of awkwardness. She looked around and nodded.

"Cool place," she commented.

The therapist nodded, a chuckle escaping her lips. "Nice to meet you, Victoria. My names Nicole and I was the one who you spoke on the phone with?"

Angelica nodded. "Kind of figured. You are here."

"Yeah," Nicole chuckled again before gesturing for the girl to sit. "So, the reason I told your mom to call you is because I noticed from your mom and siblings stories that you were the one that suffered the most."

"I believe we all suffered," Angelica breathed out, sitting down and fixing her mask. "Not just me."

"And I was told by your mom that, you know, she used to hit you?" Angelica shrugged before nodding. "Alright, so you were kind of the black sheep of the family?"

"Sure, I like black sheep."

At her comment, Nicole shook her head, a bit of laughter escaping her lips. "Nice to know," she glanced at the woman she was speaking before and looked back at the child, "so, I can give you two options here: talk to me without your mom here and never let her know how you feel or you can talk to me with your mom here and let her know how you feel."

Angelica glanced at her mom who was already staring at her. She could speak to the therapist alone and not have her mom listen to anything she said or, speak with the therapist and have her mom listen to everything she was saying.

Angelica thought about it hard.

She thought about it.

It's the perfect opportunity to tell her mom everything. To tell her the pain she suffered through because of her. To tell her she was the reason why self-hatred was embedded in her brain and why depression even came into her life. She needed to tell her before it was to late. She needed to scream it at her.

"My mom can stay."

Nicole's eyes briefly widened before slowly nodding. "Alright. Well, let's get started, okay?"

Angelica and her mom looked at each other, tension between the two.

"Victoria, I heard you and your older brother went to therapy," Angelica nodded in confirmation. "What did you, or you two, go for?"

"Because the doctors assumed we were going to kill ourselves," Angelica bluntly responded. "I had filled out a form for my Physical and they saw that my results were... alarming. My older brother went in because he carried everyone's burdens and saw everything we had suffered through the most out of everyone."

"So, you have depression, anxiety, and insomnia," Angelica nodded again, "do you know what those could've been triggered by?"

Angelica looked at her mom with a straight face. "I'm looking at her."

"What did your mom do?"

"I hate myself," Angelica admitted, keeping contact with her mom, "and I can't glance at myself without judging everything I see. I can't do that because I'm reminded of the comparisons my mom did when she compared to another child that she assumed was better than me, so... I started comparing myself with other people I didn't know. I got hit, well, disciplined, and was made to believe I was the worst child. So, adding that to my self-hatred and how I must be a disappointment, I started looking down on myself a lot more."

"Your anxiety?"

"We had a babysitter," Angelica sighed, "and, she used to lock me in her closet. When I was 8, I experienced my first panic attack when I got punished for eating too much and got sent to a closet by my parents. I started experiencing full blown attacks, I started getting nervous around people, and it was horrible."

"What about the insomnia?"

"Oh," Angelica snorted. "My mom's family suffers through it so I guess we inherited that because my older sister has it, too."

"What do you want to tell your mom now that she's here, listening to everything?"

"I always tried my best for you," Angelica immediately let it spill out. "Always, but, I was never good enough for you. I started thinking that you didn't love me at all because you didn't say those words to me or didn't show me anything that told me you did love me. I always felt... like-like, I didn't matter. That no one in the family would care if I passed away. I even believed you wouldn't care. You never noticed me, and when you did, you would make my life a living hell."

Angelica saw her vision blurring with tears.

"I was always trying. I was trying to keep myself alive for every single one of you. I was trying to keep myself alive because I believed, I still believed, that you actually cared about me even when you didn't show me that. Even when you called me names for simply eating, for simply crying, for simply laughing, for every single thing I did."

Angelica could see the way tears now formed in her mom's eyes.

"I felt like I wasn't good enough," she continued. "I didn't feel safe at my own home because you made it fucking hell. You made it suck. I'll admit that. You made me fucking hate myself more than anything and I resent you for making me feel that way. Why did you do all that? Do you really hate me?"

Angelica and Nicole now looked at her mom, waiting for an answer.

"Yo se que te lastime," Elizabeth started, "y se qué no va ser fácil mudarnos de todo esto, pero... Yo supe que como te trataba no era... bien. Por eso decidí venir acá para que ya no me sienta enojada con el mundo. Para que no te siga lastimando. Yo creo que a ti te lastime mas porque me recuerdas a tu abuela que a mi me lastimó también. Yo creo que... quise sentirme más fuerte pero eso no era el caso. Debería estar a tu lado darte consejos y darte todo que una madre debe que dar. Pero, quiero que sepas que si... Lo siento. No me debes que perdonar ahorita, pero quiero que sepas que si se lo que hice era mal." [translate: I know I hurt you and I know it's not going to be easy moving in front that, but... I know that the way I treated you wasn't... right. That's why I decided I decided to come here so I wouldn't be mad at the world. So I couldn't keep on hurting you. I believe that I hurt you the most because you reminded me of your grandma who hurt me, too. I believe that... I wanted to feel strong but that wasn't the case. I should've been by your side giving you tips and everything a mother should give. But, I want you to know that yes... I'm sorry. You don't need to forgive me now, but I want to know you to know that what I did was wrong."

"Nunca debería haber dejado que mi ira me hubiera sacado lo mejor de mi," Elizabeth continued. "Nunca debí haberte comparado con otros niños cuando estabas haciendo todo lo posible. Debería haber estado feliz por todo lo que estabas haciendo. Debería haber sido la mejor madre que podría ser, pero deje que mis emociones me dieran lo mejor. Lo siento." [translation: I never should have let my anger get the best of me. I never should have compared you to other kids when you were trying your best. I should've been happy for everything you were doing. I should've been the best mother I could be, but I let my emotions get the best of me. I'm sorry.]

Angelica could cry.

She had been waiting to hear a sincere apology from her mom and here she was, apologizing. It was as if this heavy weight lifted off her chest that allowed her to breathe properly. That's all she needed. All she needed. An apology. A single fucking apology.

"Am I allowed to leave?" Angelica asked.

"If that's all you needed to say then, yes."

Angelica nodded and stood up, glancing at her mom.

"That's all I wanted from you. An apology."

Waving goodbye to Nicole, the girl headed towards her car, unlocking it and quickly getting inside. She breathed in and out before she let her tears fall down her face.

"That's all I wanted."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

🥲🥲🥲

Angelica, my beloved 🤲🏼❤️

So, what did you think? :D

Also, I found out "ira" meant
anger in Spanish??? 😦 I didn't
know that LMAOO so, if the second
part of Angelica's mom's speech sounds
wrong, it's because I got too lazy to
translate my words so I put it in a
translating app :)