Chapter 23
No more waiting. No more tiptoeing.
I’m going to confront my parents.
Finally.
Not out of anger, though God knows, that’s still simmering under the surface, but because Caden, with all his irritating calm and rational insight, is right.
I start my new job soon. A clean slate, finally.
I don’t need the ghosts of their judgment or their unexpected, smug appearances showing up like badly timed jump scares in the middle of my fresh start.
I head to my bathroom and flick on the light, squinting at my reflection in the mirror like it might fight me.
I look… fine. Sleep creased, slightly puffy, emotionally hungover maybe, but alive.
Present. Barely. I use the restroom, shower and pull my hair into something that passes for intentional, low bun, lots of bobby pins, total damage control chic.
Brush, wash my face and swipe some concealer under my eyes because no one told me, dogs sometimes need to pee in the middle of the night.
I throw on jeans and a black sweater, the pencil skirts and slacks are for later.
Something about dressing like a woman who has her shit together helps me pretend I actually do.
Then I spritz on perfume because I’m a masochist and apparently want to smell like confidence while walking into emotional landmines.
Keys, phone, charger, emotional damage. Check, check, check.
As I grab my bag, Roxy lifts her head from the couch and watches me, calm and steady, like she’s sizing me up. I give her a small smile.
“Hold the fort.”
She blinks slowly, unimpressed, and lays her head back down like she’s already written me off for the day.
And honestly, fair.
I slip out the door, lock it behind me, and take a deep breath.
The drive to my parents’ house is somehow both long and not long enough. My nerves buzz beneath my skin like static. I keep imagining worst case scenarios, yelling, guilt trips, passive aggressive Bible verses about forgiveness, even though they stopped going to church years ago .
It’s exhausting, mentally rehearsing comebacks to lines they haven’t said yet. But I have to do this. I have to look them in the eye and force them to say what they’ve only ever hinted at behind polite smiles and icy phone calls.
Their house is the same as always, perfectly white, not a flower out of place, like it’s trying to win an award for Most Emotionally Repressed Suburban Architecture. I knock, even though I could technically walk in. I’m not giving them that power today.
The door swings open almost too quickly, like she’s been waiting. My mom, in full battle mode: red lipstick, flawless chignon, and pearls that match the cold gleam in her eyes.
“Oh,” she says, eyebrows arched. “You’re up early. How are you, sweetheart?” Sweetheart. A word so brittle it might snap in her throat.
“I’m fine,” I say, already feeling the mask slide onto my face. “Can I come in?”
She steps aside, and I cross the threshold into the museum of my childhood, pristine, cold, unchanging. I follow the noise to where my dad is on the phone in the kitchen, coffee mug in hand. He doesn’t say hello. Just, hangs up and “We’ve been calling. You haven’t answered.”
My father doesn’t look me in the eye as delivers this dig. A mark against me before I even crossed the threshold .
“I know,” I say, stepping farther inside, heart pounding. “I’ve been busy.”
My mother closes the kitchen door behind me with a soft click, and just like that, the imposition starts.
“About your job,” my mom says. No inflection, just that slight lift at the end like a question and accusation dressed up as concern. “Are you… looking?”
“I already accepted a new position,” I say, keeping my tone even. “I start next month.”
There’s a beat of silence. Not impressed. Not relieved. Just… assessing.
“Oh,” she says finally, lips pursing like she bit into a lemon she didn’t expect. “That’s good. We were a little worried, that’s all. You know, with your name still on the insurance, and the cars”
“Everything’s covered,” I cut in, and I hear the edge in my voice. Too sharp. Too final. “I’ll continue to pay for the insurance and your groceries, but I will no longer be paying for the Mercedes outside or any other expense, starting next month.”
That hits like a slap in a silk glove.
My mother’s jaw actually drops. She sputters, yes, sputters, like I’ve just told her the country club’s been turned into a Taco Bell. My father sets down his mug a little too hard, ceramic clinking against granite .
“What is the meaning of this?” he asks, every syllable tight with offense. Like I’ve just insulted the flag.
I breathe. Slow. Controlled. No yelling. Not today. “I’ve had enough,” I say, levelling my gaze at them, and for once, they both flinch. “Enough of the guilt trips. Enough of the gaslighting. Enough of being treated like your personal ATM.”
My mother lets out a soft, horrified gasp. My father scowls, but I don’t let up.
“You are my parents,” I continue, holding up a hand like I’m issuing a cease and desist. “And I would never leave you destitute. So yes, I will continue to pay for the insurance. The groceries. The utilities of this house you refuse to downsize. But the rest? Your luxury cars, your spa packages, your country club fees and the high-speed fibre internet that costs more than my first apartment? That’s on you now. ”
My mother puts a trembling hand to her pearls like they might stop her from combusting.
“You’re our daughter,” she breathes. “Family helps family.”
“No,” I say, stepping closer, eyes like steel. “Family doesn't manipulate each other with passive aggressive voicemails and weaponized silence. Family doesn’t twist the narrative so their daughter looks like a villain for choosing herself. Family doesn't spend money like water and call it love. ”
And just when I think they’ve run out of things to throw at me, my mother goes in for the kill.
“Is this why Mike left you?” she hisses, voice suddenly low and venomous. “Because you’re a heartless bitch?”
The silence that follows is ice cold. So, they know that we’re divorcing. And the first thing she says about it, is to call me a bitch. Classy.
I give her a tight smile, absolutely done with their bullshit.
“No,” I say evenly. “I kicked Mike out. Because I found him screwing your teenage daughter on our bed.”
The room tilts.
My father’s eyes go wide, like someone rewrote the rules of the universe and didn’t tell him. My mother staggers back a step, hand clamped over her mouth like she’s trying to catch the words before they stain the air.
“That’s not-” she starts, but I cut her off.
“I have the video, if you’d like to see it.”
And oh, she’s appalled now. Not horrified that her son in law was fucking her youngest daughter. No.
Horrified that I had the gall to document it .
“You filmed your sister?” she gasps, like I’m the criminal here. “You need to delete that. That’s... that’s disgusting.”
I stare at her, jaw clenched, fury simmering low and hot in my gut. “Do you even hear yourself?”
She opens her mouth to speak again, but I steamroll right over it.
“You don’t care what Mike did. You don’t care that your son-in-law took advantage of Keira You don’t care that your eldest daughter watched her marriage go up in flames. You just care that someone might find out. That it might make you look bad.”
Her eyes shine, not with remorse, God, I wish it were that, but with indignation. She’s not sorry. She’s exposed.
“I came here,” I say, “to be honest. To set boundaries. But don’t mistake that for weakness. I am done carrying you two. I am done shrinking myself to make you more comfortable. If you want my respect, start acting like you deserve it.”
And then I do what I should’ve done years ago, when I realized even their love came with a prize.
I walk past them, down the hallway, and knock on
Keira’s door.
Not for their sake .
But for hers.
Because I realized that she may not be the villain I made her out to be. I knock, soft at first. Then again, louder. “Keira? It’s me.”
Silence.
I press my ear to the door. Nothing. No music, no movement. Just eerie stillness that scares me.
“Keira,” I say again, lower now, trying to thread warmth into my voice even though my hands are shaking. “Please. Just open the door. I don’t want anything from you. I just... I need to see that you’re okay.”
I hear it then, footsteps, before the door clicks open.
Not a dramatic swing. Just a crack, wide enough for a pair of haunted brown eyes to peek through.
She’s thinner. Her cheekbones are sharper than they should be.
There’s a stain on the hem of her oversized T-shirt, and her hair is pulled into a messy bun that clearly wasn’t made for aesthetics, just convenience. Or survival.
She looks like a girl who’s been unravelling quietly for weeks, and no one noticed the sound.
I swallow around the knot in my throat. “Hey.”
Her lip wobbles. “Why are you here?” she asks, voice hoarse. Not defiant. Just tired. Like she’s bracing herself for another blow .
“I came to talk to Mom and Dad,” I say. “And to see you.”
She lowers her gaze. “Why? You hate me.”
“No,” I say, because I promised myself no more lies. “I don’t hate you. I was angry.”
She blinks hard, like she can’t believe my words. “What changed?”
“I listened to you,” I answer. “To the voicemails you left me over the past year.”
Her shoulders curl in like she’s shrinking beneath the weight of it. Shame. Guilt. All of it.
“You kept them,” she says, like it’s a statement, not a question.
My throat tightens.
“I had no idea it was that bad,” I say softly, like the words might crack if I push too hard. Like she might. Like I might.
Keira gives a tiny shrug, the kind that says she’s used to people not knowing. Used to swallowing things too big for her body, just to survive.
She gestures vaguely toward the room, an apology for the mess or maybe just the chaos of her life, and I step inside. I take the desk chair, and she leans against the windowsill like she needs the glass to hold her up .
“It wasn’t so bad at first,” she starts, voice raw and shaky.
“I mean, it was bad but bearable. You know... like Mom’s whole ‘I just care too much’ thing.
And Dad, with his little guilt bombs.” Her mouth twists.
“But when I left for college, they got worse. Dad would call every week and lecture me about my future. Mom started showing up at my dorm with care packages. She’d talk to my roommates, my RA, my professors. It was humiliating.”
My jaw clenches, but I say nothing. I let her talk. For once.
“I got a formal letter from housing,” she adds. “They said I was ‘disruptive to the living environment.’ Me. Because of her.”
A beat. Then: “I didn’t even do anything.”
That wrecks me.
“I know,” I whisper. “I know you didn’t.”
She nods, slow and silent, like she’s trying not to dissolve. Like she’s waited years for someone to say exactly that.
I inhale. It feels like glass. “I wasn’t ignoring your voicemails, Keira. I just… I couldn’t handle them. I told myself I’d listen later. That later never came.” I run a hand through my hair. “Until last night.”
Something in her face breaks open. A crumpled kind of hope .
“I was drowning,” she says. “I was screaming into a bottle and sending it to you every week. I didn’t know what else to do.”
“I know,” I say. “And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I left you in that storm alone.”
She blinks fast. I think it’s the only thing keeping her tears at bay.
“I finally get it,” I add. “Why you… why it happened with Mike. I wanted to hate you. I did hate you. But he knew what he was doing. You were vulnerable and isolated and desperate to be seen. He used that. And I’m sorry I didn’t see it sooner.”
She exhales, shaky. “I’m sorry, too. I didn’t want to hurt you. I just- he said you were leaving him. That he didn’t have anything left. I thought maybe if I gave him something, he’d…” Her voice cracks.
“It’s not your fault,” I say gently.
Silence, for a moment. Then she says it, the one thing I didn’t know I needed to hear. “Can we start over?”
I nod, heart pounding. “Clean slate.”
The way she says “yes”, like I just threw her a life vest and she wasn’t sure she deserved to be saved, nearly undoes me.
“Okay,” I say, rallying. “First thing: we’re getting you out of here. ”
Her eyebrows lift. “Now?”
“Yes. Like, five minutes ago. Pack whatever you need. Everything else we’ll come back for.”
She hesitates. “And the second thing?”
“You agree to see a therapist.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t roll her eyes. Doesn’t even sigh like a teenager being dragged into a PSA. Instead, she straightens up.
“Okay,” she says. Clear. Steady. Brave.
That’s the moment I know she’s going to be okay. She grabs a bag and starts tossing things in, T-shirts, her laptop, a hoodie I think might be mine from years ago. She moves fast, like she’s afraid the door might lock again if she takes too long.
When she zips the bag shut and slings it over her shoulder, I catch a glimpse of her, not as the sister who broke my heart, but the girl who never stopped trying to find her way home.
And I’m here. I’m finally here.
“You ready?” I ask.
She nods.
We walk out of that house without looking back .