“You’ve always looked like your grandmother. I see now you’re taking after her too,” Mom sneers before drifting her eyes up and down my body. “Though, I guess style-wise, you continue to be the captain of your own ship.”

I look down at my jeans. “I can’t stay very long, so go ahead and tell me why you made me come here.”

“Made you?” Mom laughs. “What goes on in that head of yours, Parker? No one forced you here. No one is holding you against your will.”

“You have before,” I remind her.

That’s the reason I’m here, looking at the woman I know is my mother, but who feels like the furthest thing from it.

“This is nothing but your own doing, Parker. You got yourself here. If you had just”—Mom twists her mouth in frustration—“if you had just...”

Followed the program.

Trusted the process.

Stopped fighting it.

These were all things that were repeatedly said to me over the course of my time at Horizons. The promise of home would be dangled in front of my face, like it was something I had to earn instead of my right.

I often think of my bedroom in Captain’s Cottage. After all these years, I’m still able to see it so clearly—the pale blue duvet, the striped sham pillows, the collection of trophies I earned from horseback riding. But what I really wonder about is how I left those things.

The duvet was tangled at the foot of the bed.

The pillowcase had been torn by my teeth as I fought against it pressed to my mouth.

The trophy I grabbed to use as a weapon fell to the hardwood floor.

There’s no doubt that when morning came, the duvet was straightened, the pillowcase changed, and the trophy put back in its place as if it had never moved. As if nothing had ever happened. As if I had never been there.

“Madeline, would you give Parker her present? Did you think I forgot your birthday? Never. Forty-six hours of labor, and you were born feet first. Twisted yourself the wrong way trying to find your way out.” Mom smiles tersely.

Madeline lifts a leather folder from the coffee table.

“Whatever it is, I don’t want it,” I warn them.

Mom sighs. “It’s already yours. It’s just been under our care,” she clarifies before opening the folder. “There’s five million dollars in a trust that’s available to you on your thirtieth birthday.”

I freeze and stare at the folder.

“Subject to,” Mom continues, but I’m quick to interrupt her.

“Don’t tell me. You’re going to say it’s subject to me being of sound mind and body, and then you’re going to tell a court I’m crazy and deny me my lawfully willed inheritance.”