"Mom, don’t even think about it," Mabel Quinn said, flatly refusing.
"You...do you still see me as your mom or not! Are you really trying to drive me to death before you’re satisfied?"
"Mom, are you trying to drive me to death? Back at school, you kept accusing me of doing ’that kind of thing,’ have you thought about how others would see me? It might become a stain on me for life."
Evelina’s eyes flickered, feeling uneasy, "I was misled by that dead girl Lyra Grant at the time. Mom knows she was wrong; Mabel, please forgive Mom."
Mabel didn’t know how to face her mother. Again and again, her mother disappointed her, hurt her, and now the divide between them was growing deeper. "Mom, please go back; there’s no need to think about these things anymore."
"You—" Evelina’s temper flared up again. For a daughter whom she usually scolded at will, she had already humbled herself today, but she didn’t expect her daughter to be so unyielding. "Mabel, are you treating your father fairly by acting ? Don’t forget, your father died saving you."
Mabel’s face instantly turned pale.
Kyle Kinston slightly furrowed his brow, stood up, and pulled Mabel behind him, giving Evelina a half-smile, "It’s really strange, why don’t you ask whether I’d agree to this matter?"
Evelina hesitated, and then heard Kyle say, "Even if Mabel begged me, I wouldn’t agree to this."
"But aren’t you my daughter’s boyfriend?"
"So what? What law says I have to help my girlfriend’s family? I only want her, that doesn’t include anyone else," Kyle said lazily.
Evelina’s face was flushed red.
"Are you leaving on your own? Or should I have someone escort you out?" Kyle said.
Evelina looked at her daughter, who had no intention of speaking for her, and stormed out in anger.
Mabel’s eyes darkened, "My mom has always blamed me, saying I caused my father’s death, and she’s not wrong. It really was my fault; if I hadn’t gone to the edge of that pond back then, I wouldn’t have fallen in, and Dad wouldn’t have died saving me." She recounted the deepest pain in her heart.
Back then, her brother and a few other boys made a bet, lured her to the pond, and pushed her in, betting whether she could swim. Although she had learned some swimming before, in that situation, she was in a daze, her limbs stiffened, and she couldn’t swim at all. If her father hadn’t come to look for them, she might have really drowned in that pond.
"Sometimes I think, maybe if I had actually died in that pond, it would have been better for the family. At least, my father would still be alive." And her mother wouldn’t speak to her so harshly; at least that would still be a family.
"What kind of silly talk is that," he said, pulling her powerfully into his embrace, "Mabel Quinn, your father saved you with his life, how can you say such things!"
His hands trembled uncontrollably. Was it fear of what could have been? If she had really died in that pond that year, he would have never met her. In this world, he would have lost his destined soul connection!