4. Best Mother in the world.

The welcome home banner was made into a purple glowing pillar arc. Yuck.

Welcome home Cass.

She did not even bother to spell my name correctly. Cass?

Nobody called me that. I knew that she did not want to be bothered with the whole ceremony of my graduation.

This was all just for show. She did not care about my life. All my life, I had been reminded of what a burden I had always been.

Where was she?

I sucked in a shaky breath. I was really scared of seeing my own mother. I thought in disbelief.

I gagged in reflex.

She was here. I knew without laying eyes on her that she was close by.

Mother.

I gagged because her perfume made me sick to my stomach any time I took  a whiff of it.

She was dressed to kill. The maroon bare back dress clung to her figure like a second skin. 

Ugh.

Anything to make step father happy.

"Mother." The words felt strange in my head. I said it without thinking.

Mother's face did not change as she coldly regarded me.

She walked up to me and embraced me.

From the outside, her embrace was warm, but from the inside, my mother's hug felt so cold, stiff and distance.

She was not happy to see me. She never was.

"Cassandra, so nice to finally see you." She said so casually that I cringed inwardly.

She did not even mean what she said. I could tell because I was used to her empty words of compassion or compliments.

She coldly but gently pushed me back to break the embrace.

"Aaron, you have no reason to carry her bags for her." Mother said as she smiled warmly at my evil step brother. "She has her own hands." 

Aaron merely smiled and shrugged his huge broad shoulders. "I don't mind, Catherine. She is my sister." 

I shuddered unpleasantly at the way he referred to me as his sister.

I don't want to be your sister. I thought to myself. 

A sullen looking old maid took my bags from Aaron and carried it upstairs to my room. A room I had not been in for over four years.

"The guest are arriving," Mother said dismissively and walked away. She patted Aaron by the arm three times and subtly squeezed his arm.

From the outside, it looked like a maternal display of affection but from where I was standing, Catherine wanted to fuck her step son.

Disgusting.

I balled my hands into fists as I glared at my mother. She did not look back again as she walked away.

"You are avoiding me." A firm, Arrogant female voice accused.

I groaned inwardly and shook my head.

"You know how I hate being ignored!" The lady said again and approached us.

I turned to leave but Aaron held me close. I pleaded with him with my eyes to let me go but he just smirked.

"I was taking care of my sister," he calmly said."Picked her up from school."

With fierce jealous filled eyes, the on and off toxic girlfriend of Aaron scoffed at me. 

"Why is she being picked up from school?" She demanded."Why am I not being picked up?"

"You are not Cassandra." He said with a shrug. "You are somebody who has refused to listen." 

"There is something going on with the two of you," she sniffed."It's weird and I will find out what it is." 

My heart thuded faster than ever as I panicked. Has she smelled Aaron's tongue on me?

Why was I thinking about his tongue at a moment like this.

"Something is indeed weird and it's you." Aaron replied."You don't understand sibling love."

"It's when a brother and sister are nurtured to love and be there for each other." I blurted out before I could stop myself. "Your lack of understanding is understood, it must have sucked being an only child." 

"Says the adopted bitch." She replied casually.

Aaron stiffened beside me. Shit.

Honestly, I was used to some insult to my person. People got away with it if Aaron was absent.

However, if he was present while I was being insulted, all hell broke out.

"After this party, today should be the last time I lay my eyes on you." Aaron said and led me away from his latest stunned ex girlfriend.

That was girlfriend number two hundred and nine in three years. 

"Nobody disrespects my family, not even you Electra." Aaron said for dramatic effect.

I did not think Electra was going to give up on Aaron that easily. Of all his girlfriends, she was the most enduring one of them all.

She put up with Aaron's antics and that was not going to end up well for her.

Once Aaron stopped giving a shit, that was the end of it.

The party was filled with people that I did not know. I just stood by secluded spot and watched the whole thing.

Everything was so fake and animated that I was felt suffocated. My head felt so light and my knees trembled.

I felt so uneasy and out of place, so badly that I was I wanted to leave this party.

Aaron had gone to engage some guests in the room but he made sure that we're both at a small distance of each other.

The whole party ended in a blur and I was so bone tired that I began to ascend the stairs to my room.

I managed to find my room after getting lost in the big house before I found it.

"I was expecting you to come here sooner due to your hatred of parties and people." Mother said as she casually looked around the floor.

What was she doing here?

What did she want?

Why did I feel so uneasy.

"You can no longer stay here, Cassandra.” My mother said to me coldly. “Your presence is getting in the way of my plans. I want my own child with Anthony. I want to be a mother again and your presence here will stop that from happening.”