The rain had stopped, but Sabrina still hadn’t changed out of her black dress. She sat curled up on the armchair in her mother’s room, one hand tracing the embroidery on the pillow Patricia used to hold against her chest when the pain became unbearable. The soft scent of lavender still clung to the fabric. The quiet was deafening.
Outside the window, the magnolia tree swayed under a cloudy sky, its blossoms drooping under the weight of rain. Sabrina had told the world she was done. That she no longer wanted Brace Donovan.
That her obsession was real, that she was weak, that she was false. She had told the lie well. Too well. But here, alone with her mother’s memory, she felt the fracture in her heart deepen.
She had told herself pushing Brace away was strength. That it was justice for w
