ColleenI’ve always believed that a person can feel two opposing truths at the same time. Standing inside the glass conference room today, pretending to take notes while my uncles spoke over each other, I realized I was living inside that contradiction. I looked composed on the outside, calm, agreeable, dutiful Colleen, but inside I felt like a stretched wire, humming with a tension no one else could hear.I shouldn’t have come back here. Not like this. But walking away immediately would have raised every alarm bell in this family, and I couldn’t afford that. Not when Savannah was counting on me. Not when I had finally started to understand the shape of the monster that raised me.So I stayed seated, nodding where I needed to, answering when called upon, and letting them believe I was slipping neatly back into the space they carved for me long ago.A puppet. A placeholder. A silent heir with a borrowed voice. But not this time.When the meeting ended, everyone filed out without sparin
Last Updated : 2025-12-07 Read more