Hate Me Like You Love Me (Serena and Caleb) novel Chapter 77

Caleb’s POV

The worst part about monsters from your childhood is that they never stay the size you remember — they grow with you, learning new ways to fit inside the rooms you thought were safe.

I pace the length of my bedroom, ten steps to the window, ten steps back to the door. My hands won't stop shaking. I clench them into fists, release, clench again, but the tremor stays rooted somewhere deeper than muscle.

William told Simon to leave — calm, controlled, measured authority with enough steel behind it to mean business. My mother stood beside her husband with her arms crossed, a united front that should have been enough.

But Simon isn't reasonable.

He agreed to go — eventually, with the kind of slow exit designed to remind everyone he was choosing to leave, not being forced. The front door closed behind him twenty minutes ago, and I still can't breathe properly.

His rental car is gone from the driveway.

But the dread pooling in my gut tells me this isn't over. Simon doesn't show up after three years without a reason, and that reason isn't fatherly affection.

A soft knock pulls me from the spiral.

"Caleb?" My mother's voice comes through the door, thin and fractured in a way I haven't heard since the nights Simon used to come home drunk and looking for a target. "Can I come in?"

I open the door, and the sight of her nearly takes my legs out from under me.

Catherine stands in the hallway with mascara streaking down both cheeks and her hands clasped so tightly her wedding ring cuts into skin.

"Mom." I reach for her arm and guide her inside. "Sit down. You're scaring me."

She lowers herself onto the edge of my bed and tries three times to speak before sound comes out.

"There's something I need to tell you." Her voice catches on each word. "Something I should have told you a long time ago, and I didn't because I was too afraid of what it would mean."

I pull the desk chair close and sit across from her, our knees almost touching. "Whatever it is, just say it."

"The divorce. From Simon." She presses her fingertips against her closed eyelids, smearing the mascara further. "When he disappeared, I filed the papers immediately. I wanted him erased from our lives, legally, permanently, all of it."

"I know. You told me it was handled."

"I lied."

The two words land with the weight of a confession at the end of the world.

"What do you mean, you lied?"

"Simon disappeared before the papers were signed." She drops her hands and forces herself to look at me. Her eyes carry a guilt so heavy I can see it pressing down on her shoulders. "He vanished. No forwarding address, no contact, nothing.

The process requires both parties to participate, or at least documented proof of attempted service. I tried, Caleb. I hired people to find him, spent money we didn't have tracking a man who didn't want to be found."

"And?"

No one would ever need to know.

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