“Are you sure he wasn’t just advising you on how to improve yourself? Loving someone means trying to help them be the best version of themselves.” Cynthia sighed. “But you’ve always mistreated anyone who wants to help you—I know that better than anyone.”
The words hit like a lightning strike, illuminating decades of lies before splitting them apart. Calladia stood stock-still, letting the realization burn through her.
Sam had been an abuser. She’d left him.
Her mother was an abuser, too.
Calladia looked to Astaroth, drinking in the sympathy in his gaze. She clutched his fingers, drawing strength from them. She wasn’t alone. And even if she was, the toxic relationship with her mother couldn’t continue like this.
What she was about to do would hurt for a long time to come, she suspected . . . but it would also be a liberation. The best outcome for Calladia’s heart and health. Her life, not her mother’s. Her dreams. Her future.
Calladia was a fighter. This time she would fight not to cover up her pain, but to release it.
“Love does mean helping someone be the best version of themselves,” she said. “It means supporting and uplifting them. It means even when you argue, you do it from a place of compassion.” Her eyes pricked with tears. Rather than knuckle them away, she let them trickle down her cheeks. “That’s not what Sam did,” she continued, “and it isn’t what you’ve been doing either. Both of you want a Calladia who doesn’t exist.”
“You could—”
“I’m still talking,” Calladia said firmly. “I’m not going to meet that lobbyist’s son. In fact, I won’t be attending any more political events. I’m done trying to placate you. If you don’t love me as I am now, you don’t love me at all.”
Cynthia made a shocked sound. “That’s not fair. You have so much potential—”
“Stop!” Calladia was shouting now. “Loving my potential isn’t the same as loving me. I’m done letting you tear me down. I suggest you get therapy to address your anger and your impossible expectations, but I’m not going to wait for that. We’re done.”
“Done?” Cynthia sounded confused. “What do you mean, done?”
“I’m not going to see or talk to you anymore.” Calladia’s throat ached, but she forced the words out. It was time. It was past time. “I’m your daughter, not a pet project. And where you see a failure, I see someone fierce and bold. Someone worthy of being loved just as she is.”
Astaroth raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it. His eyes were glistening, too, and in them she saw something equally terrifying and amazing.
Possibility.
Her mother was screeching about how cruel and unreasonable she was being, but Calladia was done being the family punching bag. “Don’t contact me again unless it’s an apology and a sincere promise to do better.”
She hung up.
The phone vibrated immediately. Calladia put it on silent and tossed it aside.
She took a deep breath of pine-and cedar-scented air. “Well,” she said into the silence. “That’s done.”
Astaroth’s arms wrapped around her, and she squawked as he hauled her into a tight hug. He bent back, lifting her toes off the floor before setting her down again. “You,” he said, “are magnificent.”
She sniffled and buried her face in his hair, letting the soft strands soak up her tears. Her heart hurt, but she felt light enough to float away. A burden had been lifted from her shoulders, one she’d been carrying for so long, she hadn’t realized how heavy it had gotten. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“I can. You’re a warrior, Calladia.”
“I am, aren’t I?” Not a messy brawler or a reckless disaster or any of the other negative things she and others had said about her. A warrior.
An unbearably tender emotion welled in her breast. Calladia cupped Astaroth’s cheeks and kissed him.
He tasted like fire and sin and freedom. Like deliverance.
Like hope.
His lips parted under hers, and he kissed her back with matching passion.
In trying to protect her heart, Calladia had instead created a prison for her true self. She let the final walls around her heart fall away and gave herself over wholly to this moment and this man, who, despite his flaws and his troubled history, had helped her find the key to her shackles.
Love wasn’t trying to force someone to be who you thought they should be. It was loving them as they were while supporting them on their journey toward becoming their best self. Astaroth liked her temper and attitude. Calladia liked his snark and pretentiousness. And just as he’d supported her in taking this crucial step of cutting off her abusive mother, she would support him as he fought to bring change to the demon plane.