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That’s the cruelest part of it all.

That I love them so much it hurts.

That I don’t feel worthy of being someone’s home when I can’t give them the one thing I know part of them still hopes for.

So I draw.

I love.

And I stay—for now.

But every night, when the house is quiet and my heart starts asking questions, I still don’t know if staying is the right kind of selfish…or if leaving would be the cruelest thing of all.

Because even with Dallas’s laughter in the next room and Henry’s hand brushing mine over the kitchen sink, there’s a part of me that still can’t stop wondering—am I enough?

Am I anything more than broken ribs held together with good intentions and silence?

The door creaks open behind me.

“Whiskey neat, Louie.” Her voice slices through the quiet like a jagged shard of glass—sharper than memory, colder than bone.

Suddenly, I’m ripped out of the safety I’ve been trying to let myself believe in.

That nickname. Louie. It rolls off her tongue like poison wrapped in honey. A name that used to mean comfort, warmth…before I learned it was a leash.

My grip on the sketchbook tightens, the paper warping beneath my fingers. I don’t look up right away. I don’t need to. That voice still lives in my marrow. Still haunts the darkest corners of every doubt I carry. But eventually, I lift my gaze.

And there she is.

Aged like time got tired of her and left her to decay—roots grown out three inches, skin sallow and sunken like a cigarette left burning too long. But those eyes? They haven’t aged a day. Still mean. Still sharp. Still searching for weakness.

My mother.

The woman who taught me how to ache. Who taught me love could feel like a threat.

She glances at the sketchbook like it’s filth beneath her boot. “Murph still has you scribbling those little stick figures, huh?”

A storm crashes through me—hot, wild, and all-consuming. It burns under my skin, tightens in my chest, pulses in my throat like a scream trying to claw its way out.

“Why are you here?” I ask, and my voice doesn’t sound like mine—it’s rough, splintered, shaking with everything I’ve spent a lifetime trying not to feel.

She cocks her head, eyes gleaming like she enjoys this. Like she feeds off it.

“A mother can’t come visit her daughters?” she asks, and I nearly choke on the laugh that breaks loose from my chest. It's bitter and hollow.

“No mother raised me,” I bite. “Magnolia Wilder did. You? You just fucking left.”

Her face contorts with disgust, the years of hard living etched deep into every line. Her yellowed, plaque-stained teeth flash as she sneers, voice thick with scorn.

“Of course she did,” she spits, slow and deliberate. “Always swooping in like some God damn angel, saving your sorry ass. Magnolia Wilder—always the martyr, the saint, the one everyone owes everything to. Like she’s the only thing standing between you and ruin.”

My sorry ass? We were just children. Just shows how fucking sorry the waste of space is sitting before me.

I grit my teeth until the pencil in my hand snaps clean in two. “Yeah, maybe she is. But we never went hungry under her roof. We weren’t covered in grime or left to fend for ourselves, and nobody had to walk on eggshells, praying she’d drink enough to finally pass out.”

She doesn’t say a word. Instead, she lets her eyes roam me slowly—cold, sharp, the same shade as mine, the same as Soph’s. Like she’s weighing me up, deciding if I’m good enough—or if I’m just another disappointment.

Her lips curl into a bitter sneer, voice dripping with venom as she finally breaks the silence. “Where’s Murph?”