Chapter 68: Nightmare

Sofia's Pov

I thought that if I blew Mom’s secret wide open — read her aloud, make everyone know what she did — the shame would finally sit where it belonged. I imagined it like justice: her perfect mask cracking, her feeling what she made us feel for years. I wanted her to fell horrible.

But standing here, watching Dad look at her like she’d hollowed him out, I didn’t feel triumphant. I felt strangled. The sand was halfway into Grandma’s coffin, dull thuds that should have been rhythm and instead felt like the beating out of my own heart. I wanted to cry, to let everything break open — and I couldn’t. My throat locked and air wouldn’t come.

The diary I’d stolen from Yasmin — I went for proof about Lucien, remember? — gave me something worse. Yasmin’s handwriting slid across the page in loops and small confessions: she’d been in love with my father for years. Always. Mom — Becky — had been the prettier choice, the easy choice, the “first pick” at every party. My father chose Becky bec