Animal Café Ch. 16

But then it got more interesting, Clara. On the evening of your last visit at the café, you didn't want to take a pet home, which was unlike you. That got me curious. So I checked your call logs, and on the same night, you called your mother. An hour-long call."

No! No! No! I didn't want to hear about that! I wanted Lucy to stop talking! I didn't want to talk about relationships anymore. I didn't want anything else. I just wanted to isolate myself; hide from everybody and forever.

"Stop, Clara... Stay down! I'm going to talk about this, whether you want it or not. Don't make it more difficult than it is. It's already painful enough as it is."

"..."

"I know you can't talk right now, Clara... and you know what? It's not your fault. I understand why it's so hard for you to talk."

"..."

"There... calm... calm! Don't fight me, okay? Just listen to what I have to say."

"..."

"Clara, I called your mother. I just said you put her name as a reference for a job you applied to, and she was overjoyed to tell me all about you, long and large. But it only took me thirty seconds to realize what kind of character she was.

So, you know what I think happened, Clara? I think you love your mother more than anything else in this world. But when I talked to her, I realized that she doesn't love you at all. She doesn't care one single bit about you, or at the very least, she doesn't know how. She went on and on and on about who you were and what your dreams and ambitions were... But not a single word of what she said about you was accurate. I know you, Clara, and the pets know you very well too, and what your mother had described to me was the child she would have liked to have... not the one she actually had. There was no love in her voice, just disappointment because you didn't fit what she wanted you to be. Yet, you wanted to love her as much as you could. And more importantly, you wanted her to love you back a thousand times more."

"... Bwaaaah! Baaaah! Moooom! Moooom!"

"It's okay, Clara... You have a million reasons to cry right now. Let it all out... I bet you'll cry for weeks to come. She broke you badly, so badly, and it's very sad.

Do you know why it hurt so much this time? Why, when you called her, your world crumbled down to dust, and there was nothing you could do to stop this from happening? I'm going to tell you, Clara, and you will believe every word I'm going to say because you will know deep down into your heart that I'm right.

One day, you showed up at the café. What brought you there? It was that little voice inside of you, wishing to do something for yourself for the first time. Not just what your mother had told you to do. You and only you decided to visit us.

And when you got in, you were terrified. Terrified that everything your mother had told you about this world would be true. Terrified that you were making a big mistake. Yet, when I pulled you inside and forced you to interact with the pets, you fell in love. Vix, Meeka, Misti, Oreo, Trixie, Asha, Apricot, Accalia. You fell madly in love with them all, Clara. And guess what? They genuinely returned as much love to you. They became your real friends. And you felt it so intensely inside your little heart. You felt true love for the first time. A love you had never received before.

From that point on, your life skyrocketed toward something amazing. Everything was possible. You believed in something greater than yourself. You trusted people like never before. For once, you were not wrong about anything. Everything was right."

"BWAAAAH AAHH! BAAHAAAAH!"

"That's okay, Clara. Cry... Cry as much as you can. You HAVE to... Do it for yourself and for your friends.

I checked your call logs, Clara... I saw that you hadn't called your mother a single time since you started visiting the café months ago and she didn't call you once either. You knew what was going to happen if you did call her. You knew it, didn't you? You knew your mom would smash your happiness to pieces because you are not who she wants you to be. You feared that moment.

And the other day, when you finally decided to call her to share how much better your life got... How much happier you were... She shot you down. You were flying higher than ever before in your whole life... and she just shot you down so that she could keep pushing her twisted vision of the world on you again. Instead of flying with you as a loving parent, she shot you down like a duck.

You were flying so high that the fall was long, and the fall was way too hard to break. It demolished you. It demolished your mind.

Clara, you had a major mental breakdown... because you understood for the first time in your life... Your mother doesn't love you, and probably never will, no matter how hard you try to make it happen."

"BWAAAAAH! BHHAAAAH! LUCY! LUCYYYY!"

"Come here, Clara. Come here and let me take you in your arms. I love you. I love you so much, Clara. Choose me over your mother. Choose all the petgirls over your mother. We will help you. We will support you. We will love you as hard as you let us. You didn't dream any of it. The animal café is real, and it is where you belong. We are all here for you. We need you to be the real Clara. The one who has a huge heart and who would do anything for her friends. Our love for you is real. Choose love, Clara. For your sake, you have to!"

I heavily threw my whole body into Lucy's arms and gripped her shirt as hard as I could. With my face pressed in her chest, I screamed as much as my lungs allowed me to. The pain was unbearable. Every single word she spoke was true. She nailed it. Using brute force and hurtful words, she extracted the truth from my guts and put it in front of my eyes for me to see.

It hurt so much. Why did my mother have to be like this? Why couldn't she love me? What have I ever done to her to deserve this rejection? What did I do that was so terrible not to deserve her love?

It hurt! It hurt so much!