And every single time, she'd push me to the edge of a cliff—then press her hand to her heart and say those words, I'm doing this for your own good, as if that made black white and wrong right.
As if I were the ungrateful one—the daughter too foolish to see her mother's good intentions.
I said nothing and shut the bedroom door.
The thought gnawed at me all night, shredding any hope of real sleep. My mother's face flickered behind my eyelids, then my aunt's, both blurred and shifting like figures in a fever dream.
The next morning, my mother's voice dragged me out of a fitful doze.
"Irene, get up! Aunt Grace and her family are here."
I opened the door with dark circles carved under my eyes, my face drawn and pale.
And froze.
There, on the sofa, sitting right beside my cousin, was my ex-boyfriend.
Stella Acevedo rose gracefully and gestured toward him with an easy smile.
"Irene, this is my boyfriend, Rhys Gilbert. Turns out you two went to the same school!"
Every drop of blood in my body turned to ice. I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move, unable to think.
Sophomore year.