Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
“Addie, I’m so sorry.”
Sam’s voice barely gets the words out. And for a second, I feel it. That familiar sting behind my eyes, the one I’ve spent days learning how to swallow before it turns into something visible. I bite down on the inside of my cheek and push it back.
“Are you?” I say quietly. Honestly.
Sam flinches. Visibly. In fact, her whole face twists like I’ve just slapped her.
“Of course I am!” she yells, and her voice cracks with the effort of it. “I didn’t mean for this to happen…”
I look away. Past her at the kitchen and notice the chairs are different. Even the broken one is gone. And the table—bigger, smoother, newer.
“Christian?” I ask, stepping forward a little.
Sam nods, voice quieter now as she looks at me. “And Kai.”
I stop. My eyebrows pull together before I can stop them. “What?”
Kai? Helping them? That doesn’t line up with anything he’s said—or done—over the past few weeks. He’s spent more time warning me away from this house.
It makes no sense.
Sam rubs her arm, guilt still written all over her. “Look, Addie—I really am sorry. I don’t know what else I can say,” she says, and her eyes plead with mine, desperate for something I can’t give. Forgiveness? Understanding? A clean slate?
I look at her. Really look at her.
She’s tired. Beaten down. Probably hasn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks.
And a part of me—some broken, loyal part—wants to give in. Wants to tell her I’ll stay. That I’ll fix things. That I’ll pick up the slack and hold it all together, because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done.
And if I were in this position a few weeks ago—hell, even a few days ago—I probably would have caved. “I know you’re sorry,” I say. “You don’t need to keep saying it.”
The second I say the words; we both know I’m not coming back. Not the way she wants me to.
There’s a thud upstairs, hurried footsteps across the landing—and then someone is barrelling down the stairs.
Naomi.
She stops halfway down the staircase when she sees me.
“Addie?” Her voice cracks and the tears are already in her eyes before she even gets to the bottom step. “Oh my god.”
Her gaze lands on my face and the breath hitches in her throat. I know the exact second she notices the scarring—what’s left of the swelling. Her eyes widen, hands hovering like she wants to reach for me, but she hesitates and pulls back at the last second.
“I’m sorry, I—” Her voice breaks as the tears spill over. “Did I do that?”
She’s crying now, and it makes me wonder if I should feel something. But I don’t feel bad for her. I don’t feel sorry. I feel angry.
She shouldn’t be the one crying. She shouldn’t be falling apart in front of me like she’s the one who got hurt.
For the first time, I don’t see Naomi as the fragile one. I don’t see her as someone I need to protect.
I just see her for what she is.
Someone who crossed a line and wants me to forget it ever happened. In fact, she has probably crossed it multiple times over the past few years, and I have been too blind to see it.
Or maybe I just chose not to.
“I really need to go get my stuff,” I say, turning toward the stairs without giving her an answer.
But her voice chases after me before I can reach the first step.
“What—you’re leaving again?” Naomi’s voice trembles in disbelief. “You just came back!”
I stop.
My hand rests on the banister. I don’t look at her for a few seconds. Just breathe through the ache building in my chest before glancing back over my shoulder.
“I came to get my stuff,” I say. “I didn’t come to stay.”
Naomi looks stunned, and I can’t help but notice the look of betrayal on her pretty face. “What?” she breathes out. “No, you can’t—you can’t just leave!” She steps forward, voice climbing in pitch, in panic.
“Naomi, stop it.” Sam reaches out to grab her arm, trying to pull her back.
But Naomi jerks away, frantic now. “Why won’t you just stay? Please, Addie—please—don’t leave again!”
And I freeze there. On the stairs. One foot higher than the other. Naomi’s voice bouncing around the walls behind me.
She’s begging. Crying. But all I hear is the sound of every time I cried, and no one listened. Every time I begged and it didn’t matter.
It’s not that I don’t care.
It’s just that I’m finally done pretending I owe them anything.
“Look,” Naomi blurts, voice trembling but too loud in the silence, “I apologize for the intruder situation. I apologize for letting you handle it alone. I apologize for getting mad. I know you sent Kai and Will to make us apologize, but you didn’t have to, and you should know I would’ve—”
“What?”
She winces, presses her lips together like she’s trying not to gag on her own guilt. “I’m sorry for pushing you. I’m sorry for everything.”
I stare at her.
And I want to say something. I really do. But I can’t find the right words. Or any words, really.
So, I don’t say anything.
Her face crumples because clearly, she doesn’t know what to do with my silence, and her hands twitch at her sides. “Why aren’t you saying anything?” she demands. “I said I’m sorry!”
Fair to say, Naomi is in complete and utter shock at my inaction. Genuinely stunned that sorry wasn’t enough.
“Did you seriously expect to just say sorry, and that would change what happened?”
Naomi blinks, and I see it land. Right there, in her expression. The first sharp cut of realization.
“Of course not,” she whispers, “but don’t you understand I was scared? And I wasn’t myself after the break-in. I regretted it right after, I swear—”
“Understanding and justification are two very different things, Naomi.”
Naomi stares at me, and for the first time, I see the fight drain out of her. She doesn’t speak again.
People blur together understanding and justification all the time. As if they’re the same thing. But they’re not.
Not at all.
Understanding someone’s actions is seeing the path they took to arrive at them. Justifying them would mean agreeing that the path was the right one, and those two are very different things. One is an act of perception, the other of permission.
Reasons and righteousness are not the same.
Can fear cancel out the damage? Does the pain they felt matter more than the pain they caused?
I know Naomi was scared. I know that. I understand that. I even believe her when she says she regretted it.
But it doesn’t make it right.
It doesn’t undo the bruise I’m now wearing or the silence I sat in after she walked away. It doesn’t fix the nights I spent convincing myself I deserved it somehow.
Doesn’t fix anything she’s done to me over the years.
And maybe she thinks if she says sorry enough times, I’ll hand her the version of me that still needs her.
But I know I’ll never be able to let go of them. Not completely.
Not Sam.
Not Naomi.
Not even my mother.
No matter what’s happened—no matter how badly they’ve broken me—I still find myself caring. Even when I don’t want to. Even when I tell myself I shouldn’t.
I’ll always be checking in on them. Loving them.
Because no matter how much I try to unlearn it, that part of me still exists. The part that wants to make sure they’re okay. Even if they never once thought to ask the same of me.
I used to think I could keep giving and it would be enough. That if I poured out enough of myself, they’d notice. Stay. Maybe even love me the way I tried to love them.
And for a while, I didn’t even realize it was happening. I just… kept giving. Kept handing over pieces of myself like I had an endless supply. Time. Favors. Apologies I didn’t owe. Space I didn’t have. Love I wasn’t getting back.
Because if people need me, they won’t leave me. That’s what I thought. That’s what I believed.
But one day, you wake up and realize you’ve built a life around other people’s needs, and no one’s ever asked what you needed. You look around and see a hundred open hands, and not one of them reaching out to hold yours.
Everyone takes.
And you’re just… empty.
I’m tired of it. Tired of being the one who always shows up, even when no one asked me to. Especially when no one would do the same.
I’ll always love them. That won’t change.
But I’m done offering myself up. I’m done mistaking survival for affection. And I’m done pretending that being needed is the same thing as being loved.
“Do you know how many of my birthdays you missed?” I ask, hating the way my voice shakes at the end. I don’t want to cry, not now, not here. But the tears are already building, thick at the back of my throat, stinging at the corners of my eyes.
Naomi goes still. Sam doesn’t say anything.
They just gawk at me in disbelief and horror.
And the worst part is, I know they know. They remember. Maybe not the exact number, but they remember missing them. They remember not being there.
“Do you know what I did for them?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
Nothing. No one ever asked.
“I bought my own candles,” I say through a broken breath. “I bought my own cake. I sang by myself.”
Naomi’s lip trembles.
Sam looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time.
But I keep going, because no one stopped for me when I needed it. So, I’m not stopping now.
“I sat in my room in the dark while you were downstairs celebrating Mason. Or pretending I didn’t exist. I lit the candles and waited a few seconds, just in case—just in case someone walked in. You never did.”
I laugh. It’s not funny. It sounds like choking. “I waited until the wax dripped down the sides, and then I made a wish I knew wouldn’t come true. That maybe next year would be different. That maybe someone would care.”
My fists clench at my sides. My nails dig into my palms.
“But no one ever came. Not once. Not one time.”
I look at them—really look at them. At their shock, their tears, the guilt pouring off them now in waves. And I bite my lip hard, hard enough to stop the sob clawing its way up. I won’t fall apart in front of them. I won’t. I won’t.