The pieces click together.
“Why are you here?” I ask quietly.
“Because,” she says, stepping closer, “I have done nothing but protect that man from his own stupidity. And you waltz in and undo everything.”
Protect him. From me. I feel something shift inside my chest. “You think this is about you?”
Her eyes flash. “Everything is about me when it affects my son.”
I wipe my face again. “You don’t get to call my children bastards,” I say, more steadily than I feel.
She smiles thinly. “Then you shouldn’t have had them with your ex’s father when you weren’t married to him.”
The room feels smaller. The air heavier. I am so tired. And suddenly, something inside me finally settles, not into calm, but into a kind of exhaustion so complete that it burns off whatever restraint I had left.
I push myself fully upright from the vanity, smoothing my dress automatically even though there’s nothing to smooth. My eyes still sting from crying, but my voice, when I speak, is steady. “I’m done, Amber.”
She blinks, caught off guard for half a second. “Excuse me?”
“I’m not pretending to give a shit aboutyourtragedy,” I say, meeting her gaze directly now. “None of this is about you. Find someone who cares enough to let you yell at them. It’s not me.”
Her composure fractures instantly. “This is all your fault. If you hadn’t slept with Damian, none of this would be happening. Jason’s wedding wouldn’t be overshadowed. Meron wouldn’thave been humiliated. My son wouldn’t be discovering he has illegitimate half brothers.”
Illegitimate. My jaw tightens before I can stop it. “Watch your mouth, Amber.”
“You created this spectacle! You are a menace!”
“Your boyfriend fired Damian. If anyone here is a menace, it’s you!”
“He was unprofessional.”
“You decided that Damian dating me was unprofessional because you took it personally, and you made your pathetic boyfriend fire him. If anyone in this was unprofessional, it was Meron. Grow up.”
Her eyes narrow, but I don’t look away this time. “You think this is romantic?” she demands. “A middle-aged man and his son’s ex-girlfriend? It’s pathetic.”
“You’re angry about my age. Admit it, if I were one of your hoity toity, tight-ass forty-something friends, you wouldn’t give a shit.”
“Because one of my hoity toity, tight-ass forty-something friends wouldn’t have dated my son first!” She drags her manicure through her hair. “Damian always makes reckless decisions.”
“He makeshis own choices. Deal with it!”
“He sleeps with children half his age.”
“I am a woman, fully capable of making my own choices. Not some teenager, so stop acting like it.”
She gives a short, humorless laugh. “You’re a liability.”
The word doesn’t wound the way she expects it to. Instead, it clarifies something. “Toyou. I’m a liabilityto you. And that’s only because you’ve decided I am. We could have been friends, Amber. But you chose to be a giant pain in my ass instead.”
She steps closer, heels clicking sharply against the hardwood. “You should break up with him. For the sake of decency, for his career, for his real family. If you cared about him, you’d leave him. But you’re too selfish for that, aren’t you?”
The absurdity of that nearly makes me laugh. “You want me to end it so you can feel powerful again.”
“I want you to stop destroying my son’s life. Any mother would feel the same.”
“Your son propositioned me ten minutes before his wedding, so I am not the one destroying his life. That’s on him.”
That stops her. “He what?”
