23. Skye
Skye
I don’t cry on the drive. I don’t listen to music either. Just the hum of the highway and the occasional creak of the old Civic’s suspension as it groans through every curve like it’s protesting the trip as much as I am.
Three hours outside the city and the air already feels different. Softer. Slower. Like time doesn’t race out here, it strolls. My mom’s house appears on the hill like it always has, modest and weatherworn. Like it’s been waiting for me.
She opens the front door before I even knock. “Baby,” she says, pulling me into a hug so tight I feel my ribs groan.
“Hi, Mom.”
She cups my face when she lets go, her brows pinched. “You look tired.”
I offer her a tired smile in return. “I look amazing for someone who just imploded their life.”
She doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t ask a million questions just yet. She simply rubs her thumb along my cheekbone before nodding toward the living room. “Come in. I’ll make tea.”
I don’t want tea. I want to rewind time. I want to forget what it felt like to walk out of Reece Blackwood’s penthouse with my coat still open and my pride in shreds. But I follow her inside anyway.
The house smells like rosemary and lemon and dryer sheets. Exactly the same as it always has. My shoes squeak on the polished hardwood as I make my way through the front hall and into the living room. It’s all still here, the same floral couch, same creaky ceiling fan, same pictures on the wall.
The only difference is me. I feel like a ghost inside a memory.
She returns with two mugs and sets one down beside me. I wrap my hands around the ceramic, even though I won’t drink it. The heat feels good against my palms.
We sit in silence for a while, and for once she doesn’t push. Doesn’t ask if I’m eating or sleeping or if I’ve found a new job. Maybe she already knows the answers.
Eventually, I say, “I don’t know why I came here.”
She sips her tea. “I do.”
I glance over at her.
She smiles gently. “Because this is where you come to remember who you are.”
I look around the room, eyes catching on a framed photo on the mantle of me in my prom dress, hair half-curled, standing beside Archer with his arm around my waist and that cocky grin he wore like a trademark.
I remember that night. Not the dance. Not the after-party. But the feeling. The belief that everything in my life was just beginning. That college would be perfect. That Archer would love me forever. That my heart would never break the way my mom’s had.
“Everything’s different,” I whisper.
“Of course it is.”
“I thought I was doing better. Stronger. Smarter.”
“You are.”
I shake my head. “Then why does it feel like I’m still seventeen and the world is ending?”
She reaches for my hand, already knowing by the look that’s all over my face that I’m heartbroken. “Because you let someone in. And they hurt you. That doesn’t mean you’re weak, Skye. It means you’re human.”
I stare at the tea like it might give me answers. “I didn’t think it would be like this,” I admit.
“What did you think it would be?”
“I don’t know. I thought if I left with my dignity, it would hurt less. But it doesn’t. It just feels… unfinished.”
Her brow furrows. “Do you love him?”
I press my lips together. Because the answer’s yes. But I don’t say it. Instead, I look out the window where the sun is already beginning to sink behind the trees.
“I thought he would stop me,” I say softly. “I thought he’d come after me. That he’d fight.”
“But he didn’t,” she finishes.
“No.”
And I don’t know what’s worse, that he didn’t or that part of me still wishes he would. She squeezes my hand. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now.”
I nod, but the words land hollow. Because I’ve already made so many decisions I can’t take back. I excuse myself after a little while, needing to breathe. Needing space before I confess to her the actual mess I’ve gotten myself into.
My old bedroom looks exactly the same as the day I left for college.
Pink comforter. Fairy lights around the window.
Bulletin board covered in concert tickets and pictures of old friends.
On the dresser sits a dusty glass perfume bottle and a cracked snow globe from our trip to Nashville in high school.
It’s a time capsule of someone who had no idea what was coming.
I sit on the edge of the bed and run my hand over the comforter, the satin slightly worn from years of sleep and secrets. I lie down, curling on my side. This room used to feel like a sanctuary. Now it just feels small.
I close my eyes and try to remember who I was before Reece Blackwood took up permanent residence in my chest. And I can’t. I’m not her anymore. But I don’t know who I am now, either.
The next morning, I find Mom in the kitchen, humming along to some old Motown song as she whisks eggs in a chipped blue bowl.
Sunlight filters in through the curtains, dust swirling in the beams like tiny ghosts.
It smells like toast and coffee and lemon dish soap. Like everything safe and ordinary.
I want to stay in this moment. But it’s gnawing at me. The truth. The confession. I take a breath. “Mom?”
She glances at me. “Yeah, baby?”
“I need to tell you something. And you can’t freak out.”
That gets her full attention. She sets the whisk down and wipes her hands on a dish towel, leaning one hip against the counter.
“Alright,” she says cautiously. “Tell me.”
I grip the back of one of the kitchen chairs, knuckles whitening.
“I was seeing someone.”
A pause. Then a slow nod. “I thought we already established that.”
“It was serious. At least—it was for me.”
“Did he hurt you?”
I blink. “What?”
“Whoever he is. The way you showed up here, Skye… You looked wrecked.”
I laugh once, sharp and bitter. “Yeah. He hurt me.”
She softens, stepping forward. “Oh, honey?—”
“There’s more,” I cut in, heart thudding. “It’s not just that.”
She waits. And I say it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “It was Reece Blackwood.”
For a second, she doesn’t react. Then her brows draw together. “Archer’s dad?”
I nod. The silence stretches like a held breath.
“You were dating Archer’s father?”
“I wasn’t dating anyone at first,” I say quickly. “I was temping for him. At his company. And then it just… evolved. Slowly. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Neither of us did.”
She just stares at me, processing.
I go on, filling the space like I always do when I’m spiraling. “We tried to stay professional. We really did. But the tension, Mom, it was unbearable. We fought it for weeks. And when it finally happened… it felt like everything in my life suddenly made sense.”
“Skye…”
“It wasn’t just sex,” I say quietly. “It was more. He saw me. He listened. He made me feel like I wasn’t too much or not enough—I was just… me. And that was okay with him.”
She exhales slowly and pulls out a chair. “Come sit.”
I sink onto the chair. She folds her hands on the table. “You’ve always been drawn to older men.” I flinch. “I don’t mean that as judgment,” she adds gently. “Just as truth. Let’s not pretend all of your celebrity crushes weren’t men old enough to be your father.”
I say nothing. Her voice softens. “I left you fatherless. I always worried you’d chase what I couldn’t give you.”
“Don’t,” I whisper.
“Skye—”
“Please don’t make this about that,” I say, blinking fast. “You raised me by yourself. You were everything. I never needed anything more than you.”
She leans back, eyes glassy now. I don’t want her to feel guilt for something that isn’t hers to carry.
“I didn’t fall for Reece because he reminded me of someone I missed,” I say. “I fell for him because he’s strong. And kind. And deeply, deeply broken in a way I understood.”
She nods. “And he ended things?”
“He told me to leave.” My throat tightens. “I stood in his living room, wearing lingerie and a trench coat like I was in some bad rom-com, and then Archer walked in and… yeah, that’s how he found out.”
My mom’s mouth drops open. “Oh my God. You’re kidding.”
“I wish.”
She stares at me, stunned. “ That ’ s how he found out?”
“Yep.”
“Skye…”
“I know.”
“Jesus,” she breathes, sitting back like the story just knocked the wind out of her. “No wonder you looked like a haunted doll when you showed up on my doorstep.”
I let out a laugh that’s more of a choked sob. “That’s an accurate summary.”
She shakes her head. “I mean—of all the ways for something like that to come out…”
“I thought he’d stop me,” I whisper. “I thought he’d fight.”
“But he didn’t.”
“No.”
She’s quiet a long moment. Then her hand covers mine, warm and steady.
“And you still love him.”
I don’t answer. I don’t have to. Her fingers squeeze gently. “Then maybe the question isn’t whether you made a mistake falling for him. Maybe the question is, does he regret letting you go?”
My throat aches. “I don’t know.”
She studies me for a long time. Her expression isn’t judgmental. It’s maternal in the fiercest sense, protective and full of grief for me.
“You don’t need to decide anything today,” she says softly. “But don’t let shame make the decision for you.”
I nod, blinking hard. And for the first time in weeks, I feel something crack open in my chest. A little breath of air. A little space.
It’s past midnight when I pull the old notebook out of my suitcase.
The pages are soft at the edges, the spine cracked from too many years of being dragged across state lines and heartbreaks. I haven’t written in it since before I started the job at Blackwood Enterprises. Back when my biggest concern was whether Maya’s cat had peed on my only good blazer.
The pen feels foreign in my hand. But the ache in my chest is familiar.
I curl up beneath the old quilt, tucking my knees under me as the lamp on the nightstand casts a warm, amber halo over the bed. Outside, crickets chirp in the thick summer dark. The quiet is dense. Safe. My hand hovers over the first blank page before I finally press pen to paper.
Every man I ’ ve ever loved has made me feel like I had to earn it.