Mom’s mouth opened, but no sound came out for a long moment. “Jane, that’s not?—”
“It’s over,” I said. “You sold it. Toher. Thayer Steelworks is going to be taken apart like an old car and sold off in pieces. Because of you.”
The words felt ugly in my mouth, metallic and sharp, but they were true. My hands shook at my sides while my mother stared at me like I’d just spoken in another language.
“That’s dramatic,” she said finally. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” I snapped. “I know exactly that. Everyone does, except for you. They’ll strip it for parts. Patents, real estate, equipment. They’ll sell off anything that isn’t nailed down, and then they’ll close what’s left and you helped Mallory do it.”
She crossed her arms, defensive in that familiar way that always made me feel twelve years old instead of thirty. “It’s not fair for you to be mad at me.”
A broken laugh shot out of me. “Not fair?”
“Baby, the money?—”
“No, let’s talk about what’s not fair. Running that company was my dream,” I said, cutting her off. My voice rose despite my best efforts to keep my temper from flaring. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I was in college for ten years, Mom.Ten. Years.”
I was panting now, memories speeding through my brain of everything I’d done to keep precisely this from happening. “I got a doctorate because I thought that if I worked hard enough, if I proved myself, it would be mine. That I’d be worthy of it.”
Her lips trembled. “I never said?—”
“You didn’t have to,” I shot back. “I did it anyway because I knew I didn’t stand a chance otherwise.”
I took a step toward her, my chest tight. “I kept this family afloat. Withmymoney. Money that could have paid off my student loans. Do you know how much debt I’m carrying because I chose everyone else over myself?”
She looked away, but I was far from done. “I put my brothers through college on my own dime. I kept the lights on and the fridge full. I made sure Wyatt had rides, help with his homework, and someone at his events. I made sure you didn’t fall apart when Dad went to prison. I made time for you when you couldn’t get out of bed.”
My throat burned. “No one took care of me. No one. Not once did anyone ask if I was okay. Even when I wasn’t, I still kept going because I had to. Because no one else would if I didn’t.”
Until now. The thought of Alex slid into my chest without warning, warm and painful all at once.
From the beginning, that was all he’d done. Cared for me. Fed me when I forgot to eat. Gave me space when I needed it and attention when I didn’t even know how much I’d been craving it. He saw the cracks and didn’t try to fill them with platitudes. He was just there, standing solidly behind me when I’d needed him the most, holding me together.
Now he was willing to buy the entire company to save my place in the world. Not because he had to, but because it was whatIwanted.
The contrast nearly broke me.
“That godforsaken company isn’t everything, Jane. You still have a family,” Mom said. “You still have me.”
I looked back at her then, and something inside me finally tripped, like a switch I hadn’t even known was there. “No, I don’t. Not like this.”
Her eyes widened. “What are you?—”
“This is it,” I said, too many lights coming on in my brain at once. “No more money. No more fixing things. And honestly? No more contact. At least for a while. I can’t do this anymore.”
I was breathing hard. It felt like my brain was finally making sense of things that were long overdue. Meanwhile, Mom’s lips had curled into that pout they always did when she was sulking and I could see it coming, the whimpering guilt trip she was about to lay on me.
For five long years, I’d buckled whenever she’d looked at me like that, but today, I finally saw it for what it was—pure, unbridled manipulation.
“You’re a grownup, Mom. A mother, not that you really know what it means to be one, but you still have one more child counting on you. If only for a few more months. Pull yourself together and act like a fucking adult for once in your life.”
I turned away from her and froze when I saw Wyatt standing at the edge of the hallway, his muscles locked, his face pale, and the expression in his eyes suddenly too old for seventeen. It didn’t take a genius to figure out he’d heard everything.
My breath caught. He just looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time, not saying anything or even looking like he was breathing. I couldn’t handle it. Seeing my brother looking at me like I was a stranger was the last straw.
I ran upstairs. Into my room that looked the same as it always had, childhood trophies and old books lining the shelves, the bed I’d slept in since high school, and suddenly, it felt like a museum to a life I didn’t live in anymore. I yanked my suitcase out of the closet and started throwing things into it.
Clothes. Shoes. My laptop. I didn’t think. I just moved.
