Mom,

You’ve always done your best for me, and I love you for it. But I can’t stay here anymore. Every room and corner of this house feels like it’s suffocating me.

I’m going to stay with Aunt Mary in San Francisco.

I don’t know for how long…

Please don’t try to come after me.

I just need time.

— Beverly

I stared at the words until they blurred.

San Francisco. Aunt Mary.

But no address. No phone number. No details.

I stumbled back against the wall, my chest tight with panic.

I knew her Aunt lived somewhere in the city, but I had no idea where. I didn’t know what part of San Francisco. I didn’t know what her house looked like. I didn’t know anything.

I forced myself to move, to stumble back downstairs, where Mom was still sitting on the couch. Her fingers had drifted back to her lap, fidgeting mindlessly with her wedding ring.

“Where in San Francisco?” I demanded. She didn’t answer. Didn’t even look at me. “Mom! Tell me where she is.”

Nothing. No reaction.

I ran a hand through my hair, barely keeping myself together. My mind raced, unraveling too fast for me to stop it. “Mom, please,” I begged. “I need to know where she is.”

Her head lifted, and the fire in her eyes burned through me. “If my daughter wanted you to find her,” she said, her voice thick with resentment, “she would have left a note for you as well.”

The words knocked the air from my lungs. I stood there, stunned, the note clutched in my trembling hand, crushed from my grip. A part of me broke right then—shattered from the inside out. But the other part snapped entirely.

“If you cared about your daughter,” I retorted, “you would’ve been there for her. You would’ve seen how bad she was hurting. You would’ve helped her instead of letting her pack a bag and disappear in the middle of the night!”

Her face twisted with something between disbelief and fury. “And who the hell was there for me?” she shouted, her eyes wild. “My husband died, Blake! He died in the middle of a street,” she hissed, rising to her feet. “And now I have no one to care for me. No one asking if I’m okay. All you two ever do is destroy each other and expect me to glue the pieces back together.”

I flinched but stood my ground, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “You’re her mother. You’re supposed to be the glue, for God’s sake. You don’t get to fall apart before she does⁠—”