Hate.
The things the Masterson’s said about their own daughter circle my thoughts like vultures. Not because I believe them completely, but because part of me recognized the pattern.
My mother always ran hot and cold. Always “loved” too hard. Always burned bridges and called it survival.
And suddenly I don’t know where she ends and I begin.
I move to the bed and sit, staring at my hands like they belong to someone else. These hands have packed up entire lives in trash bags. Have counted change for grocieries. Have held my mother upright when she couldn’t stand on her own.
They’re steady now.
But they don’t feel strong.
A knock sounds on the door. I stiffen.
“Peyton,” Colter calls from the other side, voice low. Not angry. Not gentle either. Just…there.
I don’t answer. The door opens anyway.
He doesn’t crowd me. Doesn’t go to touch me. He leans against the doorframe like he’s holding himself back from crossing a line he already crossed once today.
“You aren’t packed.”
I look up at him sharply. “I’m not some puppet you can order about.”
“No,” he agrees. “You’re not.”
The pause stretches.
“But you are mine.”
My throat tightens. “And what if I don’t want to be yours.”
His jaw flexes. “You still won’t be staying here. It puts you in the middle of things you don’t understand yet.”
I’m coming to hate that word.
Yet.
I stand abruptly, anger flaring hot and sharp. “Everyone keeps saying that. Like I’m some kind of child. Like I didn’t survive everything she put me through.”
His gaze darkens. “You survived because you’re stubborn as hell. Not because the world was kind to you.”
The words land harder than I expect.
I turn away, shoving open the dresser drawer. My hands move automatically. Jeans, a shirt, socks. Muscle memory honed from years of leaving places I wasn’t welcome anymore.
“You don’t get to talk about my life like you know it,” I mutter.
“I know enough,” he says quietly.
I laugh once. It’s brittle. “You know what? Everyone here thinks they know me. Know my mother. But none of you were there at night when she cried herself to sleep. None of you watched her scrape together rent money or go hungry so I didn’t have to.”
Colter doesn’t interrupt. That somehow makes it worse.
“She wasn’t perfect,” I continue, voice shaking. “But she was mine.”
He nods once. “Did you ever bother to think that is why we don’t want you digging up the past? We don’t want to take that away from you.”
