But that decision came with a steep price. To them, I was still Hannah the failure. Hannah the invisible. The burden. The plain daughter who had “settled into a life of mediocrity,” as my mother had once phrased it over Christmas dinner.
I hadn’t told them about Nathaniel for a reason. But standing there, holding the ruins of my dress while the smell of Aunt Carol’s wine drifted toward me, I knew the silence was over.
I wasn’t sure I could keep it in anymore. Because he was coming.
Not because I asked him to save me. Not because I cried on the phone. But because four hours ago, when I texted him that my mother had slashed my clothes and mocked me to my face, he had sent back a message containing only four words.
Send me the address.
Chapter 2: The Arrival
Now, I sat on the edge of the twin bed in the dusty upstairs guest room—the same room they made me sleep in as a kid whenever “important” relatives visited. I was wearing a wrinkled t-shirt I found at the bottom of my suitcase and a pair of jeans with holes I didn’t remember buying.
The rehearsal dinner was in three hours.
The house below me was chaos. It was the specific, frantic energy of a wedding weekend. I could hear hair dryers blasting like jet engines. Bridesmaids were yelling about misplaced jewelry. My brother Brandon was laughing too loudly downstairs, a booming, artificial sound he used when he was trying too hard to impress his fiancé’s wealthy family.
None of them noticed I hadn’t come down since the incident. None of them noticed I’d gone silent.
I checked my phone. Two minutes out.
I took a deep breath, steeling myself. I walked to the mirror one last time. The woman staring back wasn’t the scared eight-year-old anymore. She was tired, yes. She was angry, absolutely. But she wasn’t alone.
When the doorbell rang, it cut through the noise of the house.
