Not a single person at that table looked surprised.
No one gasped and said, “Where did you hear that?”
No one looked appalled as if this were new information.
No one acted like Aiden had said something shocking.
Because it wasn’t shocking to them.
It was familiar.
It was the script. The role I’d been placed in, finally read out loud by a child too young to know how cruel it was.
My face burned hot, the kind of heat that crawls up your neck and settles behind your eyes. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears, drowning out the clink of silver and the return of conversation as people slid back into normal like this was just a quirky family moment.
The fork in my hand suddenly felt too heavy. My plate blurred slightly.
I set the fork down.
I folded my napkin very carefully, smoothing it like it mattered, like precision could keep me from shaking apart. I placed it beside my plate.
Then I stood.
“Where are you going?” my mother asked, still chuckling as she reached for cranberry sauce. “We haven’t even had pie yet.”
I didn’t answer. My throat felt like it had narrowed to a straw. I stepped away from the table and felt fourteen pairs of eyes on my back, not concerned, not apologetic—curious. Amused. Mildly annoyed that I might disrupt the comfortable flow of the evening.
Jessica’s house—yes, she called it a house, but she always spoke about it like it was an estate—smelled like roasted meat and expensive candles. Vanilla and sandalwood and something else I couldn’t name but always recognized as “rich person scent.” The dining wing was lined with framed family photos, professional beach shots where everyone wore white and looked sun-kissed and effortlessly happy.
In almost every photo, Jessica stood front and center, smiling like she owned the world.
I walked past them without looking.
I opened the hall closet, grabbed my coat, and shrugged it on with hands that shook just enough to make the zipper fight me. My keys slipped from my fingers twice before I managed to get a grip.
I could feel eyes watching from the dining room doorway.
No one followed.
No one said, “Nina, wait.”
Why would they?
