Nothing he says makes me believe Maya is the one lying. I don’t recognize him. He’s not the man who taught me kindness… not the father I trusted my whole life.
“You’re not going to tell me the truth, are you?”
A tear slips down my cheek, and I wipe it away roughly. “It’s the same all over again. The same as Colin.‘It was nothing’.‘It was a mistake’. All lies.”
“You’re letting what happened between you and Colin cloud your judgment,” my mother says, stepping closer. “You shouldn’t—"
I turn to her, disbelief and disappointment flooding my chest.
“Shouldn’t see the truth? Keep pretending everything’s fine? That nothing’s changed?” I turn my back on them both.
Suddenly, the house that once felt safe feels wrong. Like the lies have tainted the walls themselves.
“I can explain what happened,” my father says behind me, his voice unsteady now. “You’ll understand—it doesn’t change who I am.”
He pauses, and I hear cautious footsteps approach. “I’m still your father. The same man who makes your favorite hot chocolate. The one you can talk to about anything.”
When his hand touches my shoulder, I flinch.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I whisper, my chest tightening.
And I walk away.
He calls my name, but I don’t turn back. I rush out the door, slamming it behind me.
In the car, I rest my forehead against the steering wheel, fighting to steady my breathing, to hold the tears in.
But they come anyway.
I grab my phone with trembling hands and send a single text.
Chapter 16
She is everything you will never be
Colin
Every light turns red the second I get close, and each stop feels longer than the one before.
I tap the steering wheel. My reflection glares back from the windshield, jaw tight, eyes hollow.
I mutter a curse when another light flashes red. “Of course. Why not?”
A horn blares behind me. I don’t react. The sound dissolves into the engine’s low hum, the trapped heat inside the car, the pressure building in my chest that won’t ease.
I shouldn’t have driven. Not like this.
The thought circles back to the same place:you did this.
It started with me.
I hit the gas, then brake hard as the next light turns red.
Another horn. Another reminder that even now, I can’t move forward.
“Brilliant,” I mutter under my breath.
Guilt claws at me, but anger is the only thing keeping it from devouring me whole.
