“Sacrificed?” The word slips out before I can stop it.
Her eyes snap to mine, wounded. “Everything we’ve done has been for you girls. Every decision?—”
“You blackmailed them.” My voice comes out flat, hollow, surprising even me with how calm it sounds while my insides are burning. “Instead of just asking for help, you threatened them. Did it ever occur to you that the Moras might have helped us anyway? For Amelia?”
The reverend’s prayers stutter to a halt.
Mother’s eyes narrow. “You’ve never understood what it takes to protect this family. How far a mother is willing to go for her daughter.”
Amelia makes a small sound. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” Mother’s voice climbs. “What’s not fair is watching you fade away while your sister—” She cuts herself off, breathing hard.
The silence stretches, and the words sink into me like teeth, tearing at something I thought was already dead.
That place where hope used to live.
Does she even see me as her daughter?
“While I what?” I focus on the crumbles on the floor before looking my mother straight in the eyes. “Say it.”
“That’s enough.” Father’s warning falls flat.
“No, it’s not enough.” I stand straighter. “It’s never been enough, has it? Nothing I do is ever enough.”
Mother’s hand presses against her chest like I’ve physically wounded her. “I don’t recognize you right now.”
“Good.” Something cold and clear settles in my chest. “Because I don’t recognize myself either.” And honestly? I like this version better.
“After everything we’ve done for you.” My mother rises and crosses to me. “You’ve been nothing but a disappointment since the day you were born.”
Her hand flies up.
I don’t flinch. Just watch it come.
Rosa’s fingers close around Mother’s wrist, stopping it inches from my face.
But I feel it anyway.
The sting. The burn.
Like it connected.
“Don’t you dare,” Rosa hisses, her accent thickening with anger. “Touch her, and I’ll break every perfectly manicured finger on your hand.”
Mother’s eyes widen in shock. With deliberate slowness, she wrenches her arm from Rosa’s grip, adjusting the cuff of her blouse where it’s been wrinkled.
Her eyes flick down to my ruined dress. “You will pay for that dress with your own money. Every penny of it.”
Rosa makes a sound of disgust. “You’re worried about a dress?”
“It’s Cera Mang,” my mother says, as if that explains everything.
“It’s ugly,” Rosa fires back. “And it’s too flowery, like she had to compensate for something instead of letting her true beauty shine.”
In any other circumstance, I might have laughed. But right now, I can’t feel anything except a spreading numbness, like my body is slowly turning to ice from the inside out.
Amelia struggles to stand, her face creased with worry. “Dakota?—”
