“No,” I said. “You were proud of yourself.”
Her face hardened slightly. “Careful.”
“There it is.” I looked at her, really looked at her. The perfect robe. The perfect hair. The perfect woman who had taught me to smile when men measured me and call it power. “You were proud because you thought I had finally done what you trained me to do. Turn heartbreak into a better catch.”
“That is not fair.”
“Isn’t it?”
Her hand tightened around the coffee mug.
“You have no idea what it takes for women like us to be safe.”
“Safe,” I repeated.
“Yes. Safe. Protected. Chosen by the kind of men who can build a life instead of destroy one.”
“Drew did build one,” I snapped. “He built it out of pieces no one handed him. He built it without your approval, without Richard’s approval, without my father’s approval, without anyone in this house seeing him as more than a body with money behind it.”
My mother blinked.
I held up the bracelet.
“This is Drew. Not Montgomery. Not Richard’s son. Not an NFL prospect. Not a richer replacement for Tristan Vale. Drew.The man who fed me when I was hurt. The man who slept by the door in Miami because he didn’t trust his brothers. The man who made Thanksgiving with me in a kitchen that hated joy because he missed his mom.” My voice cracked, but I kept going. “The man who saw me when I was still stupid enough to look past him.”
My mother’s expression shifted.
A little.
Not enough.
“Isa,” she said carefully. “You’re nineteen. You think everything feels like love when it’s intense.”
“No. That was Tristan.”
She went quiet.
I breathed hard through my nose.
“Tristan was intensity. Pride. A fantasy I turned into a personality flaw. Drew is love.”
The word finally came out.
Love.
And I didn’t explode.
The room didn’t collapse.
My heart did not crawl out of my chest and die from exposure.
It hurt.
But it also felt true.
I pressed the bracelet against my palm.
“I love him,” I said again, softer. “I love Drew Travers. And you helped make him think I didn’t.”
