I snap forward, jerking toward her but the woman doesn’t so much as flinch. “You told me to feel was to fall flat on my face, but you had it all wrong. To fight what you feel is so much worse because there are things you can’t push away, and then everything you’ve fought off for so long comes raging like a fucking hurricane, suffocating you from the inside out. I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep or eat. I fuck up over and over again, running from what’s real because I’m too messed up to recognize it.”

I glare at my mother.

“I don’t even know how to let someone love me, let alone love someone back.” Thick, unrelenting claws curl beneath my rips, tugging and tearing, yanking.

Everything hurts.

“You ruined me,” I croak.

“My god... Jameson,” my mother whispers, and there’s another crack somewhere. Everywhere.

The corner of her mouth lifts the smallest bit, her left arm coming up and gently brushing my cheek. “Take a Xanax already.”

Her hand falls, and with it, my heart hits my feet. I stumble backward, hitting my hip on the kitchen island, but she doesn’t notice.

She’s already walking away, but I’m frozen in the spot, spinning and spinning. I might vomit.

I don’t know how long I stand there, but I’m still attempting to remember how to breathe when a soft palm lands over mine on the countertop I don’t remember grabbing on to.

The hand is small, telling of age, and I lift my eyes to find the softest shade of brown.

Nana, the housemaid, stands there, a steaming cappuccino in her free hand. She lowers it to the countertop with an encouraging smile. “I’m happy to have whatever you wish ready for you when you wish, but something tells me you’d like to know how to work the machine on your own?”

I nod, struggling to find my voice.

“Good, and it will keep you from them a while longer.” She tips her chin with a smile.

A low, unexpected chuckle escapes, and we take as long as possible to go over the instructions on the espresso machine, but eventually, I make it into the room where everyone waits on me.

My mother barks instructions and I play like porcelain, cold and lifeless, unmistakably still with my spine straight, neck stretched, and chin high as they turn me into whatever she sees fit.

I’m primped and pressed, and when the clock hits six-forty-one, my lipstick is applied for me.

She nods in approval of the royal blue dress she surely picked out.

It hits mid-thigh, lies elegantly over my skin with long sleeves and a cross-over cut in the front. I have no cleavage showing, but my shape is accentuated as intended. My pumps are nude, bangles golden, hoop earrings a perfect match.