“I heard you have a family now,” she said, her voice carrying that same clipped, assessing tone I remembered from every parent-teacher conference of my childhood. “I’m going to be in town. I’ll stop by tomorrow. I’d like to see exactly how badly you’ve ruined your life.”
I almost said no. Some part of me, three years into a life I’d genuinely built without her, wanted to simply let the silence continue indefinitely, rather than open the door to whatever judgment she’d clearly already prepared before even getting in her car.
But Marisol, when I told her about the call that evening, surprised me.
“Let her come,” she said. “Owen, I think some part of you still needs her to actually see this, whatever happens after. I’d rather she see it honestly than keep imagining whatever version she’s built in her head for three years.”
PART 5
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