My stomach knots tighter.Concern. That word never means anything good.
And then he gestures toward the front row. Toward them.
My parents rise as one, a rehearsed performance. My mother, in her immaculate navy suit, and my father, in his tailored charcoal, both looking like they stepped out of a campaign ad.
“Friends,” my father says, warm, practiced, oozing sincerity, “we asked the mayor to call this meeting because we believe it’s time to talk about honesty. About loyalty. About what it means to truly belong in Honeysuckle Grove.”
My pulse spikes. This is bad. So very, very bad.
He keeps going, calm as a man delivering scripture. “For too long, certain… choices have threatened to divide us. Certain behaviors have put this town at risk. And we, my wife and I, cannot stand by and watch the Grove lose its way.”
A low murmur runs through the crowd.
My mother steps forward, her eyes sweeping over the room before landing on me with pinpoint precision. “We all remember what happened, don’t we? When our daughter?—”
I flinch at the mention of me.
“—made the decisions that cost this town its peace. That humiliated her family. That led to…” She presses her lips together like the words taste bitter. “Tragedy.”
Heat floods my face. My chest squeezes tight, breath stuttering. Oh god. What are they doing? Here. In front of everyone.
I can feel a hundred eyes turning toward me.
And just like that, just like before, I’m back there. Almost twenty years old and stupid and alone, while whispers shredded me from the inside out.She brought this on herself. She ruined everything.
I told myself I was past it. That I didn’t care anymore. But standing here, every old wound splits wide open.
My father’s voice cuts, a blade dipped in honey. “We only want what’s best for this town. And what happened years agowas dreadful. We were blamed for things that were not our fault. Our daughter was to blame for it all.”
The room is silent. My skin crawls with it. And for one horrifying second, I think it’s working. That look in people’s eyes, the doubt, the tilt of heads, the faint crease of brows, I know that look. I’ve drowned in it before.
My throat burns. I want to speak, to scream, to fight, but the words won’t come. They never do when I need them most.
Then a voice slices through the quiet.
“Are you done?”
Every head swivels. Beck is leaning against the aisle rail, all lazy menace, his smile sharp enough to bleed. “Because I gotta say… I’ve heard a lot of horse shit in my life, but that?” He shakes his head slowly. “That takes the blue ribbon.”
Gasps ripple through the crowd.
“Excuse me—” my father starts, indignation snapping at the edges of his tone.
“No,” Beck snaps right back, straightening to his full height. “You don’t get to stand up there and pretend you’re some kind of savior when all you’ve ever done is cause hell.” His voice is rising, raw and furious. “You stole from us all, and now you’re trying to blame your daughter. You have the audacity to waltz in here and act like you care about this town when you bled us dry?”
People are staring now, not at me, but at him.
At us.
Hayes steps forward next, calm as still water but with that undercurrent of steel that makes the hairs on my arms lift.
“Lo didn’t ruin anything,” he says. “She survived. And if you think you can twist the truth, think again. Some of us were there. Some of us know exactly what happened.”
A murmur rises, louder this time. Agreement. Not doubt.
Ford doesn’t even move to the stage. He just says, “You’re done here,” in that deep, immovable way that makes grown men back down.
My mother’s mouth flattens. “This is none of your business?—”
