“Not Scott, Nate.”
My mind stutters and the air goes thin.
I look up.The room narrows.
“Scott was everything the town loved—captain, golden boy, Sullivan heir.I was the girl from nowhere.The daughter of addicts who skipped town when I was sixteen and never came back.He saved me once, or I thought he did.But after college, after we got married against his parents wishes, after he took over the family business, he changed.Or maybe he just became who he really was.”
Her voice cracks.“The first time he hit me, he cried after.The second time, he didn’t.The third time, he was high and I stopped fighting back.”
Something cold snakes up my spine.
“David had introduced me to one of his childhood friends, his name was Dominic.He was gentle and kind.And was a musician, a really talented one at that.Dom was the first man who saw the real me and saw what was happening while I was with Scott.I didn’t mean for anything to happen, but it did.And when I found out I was pregnant—with you—I prayed to God it wasn’t Scott’s but also knew what would happen if you were Dom’s.”
She keeps talking, voice trembling.
“I stayed with Scott to protect Dom.To protectyou.I thought if Scott believed the baby was his, he’d stop.And for a while, he did.But the day you were born, I knew.You weren’t a Sullivan.You were light, you were pure and when Dom saw you for the first time…”
She pauses, and for a moment, her eyes drift far away.
“He froze.Just looked at you and I saw it hit him, that quiet certainty.He knew you were his before I said a word.And I knew I’d just broken two hearts—the man I loved and the man I’d condemned myself to.”
She swallows hard.
“When Scott found out, he lost control.The threats, the drugs, the violence—it all came back worse.And then Dom disappeared.No goodbye, no trace.He was just gone.I always knew what that meant.”
I want to move, to speak, todoanything—but I can’t.My body’s a live wire and my chest feels like it’s caving in.
She grips her sleeve, twisting the fabric tight in her hands.
“I was terrified every day.I slept with a knife in the drawer.I stayed because he said if I left, I’d never see Jake again.So I stayed and something inside broke a little more every day.”
Her voice shakes as she continues.
“Dom reached out before your eighth birthday.He wanted to send you a card.I told him no—it wasn’t safe.He said he’d take us away.But I couldn’t because Jake was Scott’s and he’d never let him go.”
Her sobs fill the room now.
“You were my hope, Nate.You were the proof that something good could come from all that hell.And Jake—Jake was the reason I stayed alive long enough to raise you both.”
I stare at her, but I don’t see her.I see every version of her—the woman patching bruises with makeup, the mother hiding vodka in coffee cups, the one who smiled like her mouth remembered how even when her eyes didn’t.
She takes a breath, steadying herself.
“I know you’re angry and you have every right to be.But you can’t tell me I don’t understand pain.You can’t tell me I don’t know what it’s like to want to disappear.Because I do, more than you know.”
She’s right, I can’t tell her any of that.
“But when you think you’ve got nothing left,” she says, voice softening, “that’s when you hang on.Even if it’s just by a thread.Because that thread might be the only thing keeping you from falling completely.For me, that was you and Jake.Now it’s just you.”
She wipes her face, trembling.
“You are my last thread of hope, Nate.Please, I beg you—don’t cut it.”
Her body shakes, all the years of silence unraveling in front of me.
I never got it before.
I thought she stayed because she was weak.But looking at her now—seeing the girl who got trapped and the woman who survived her own personal war—I finally do.
