Celeste’s POVI thought the worst was over.Finding Bonnie half-frozen on a concrete step, feverish and alone, felt like the kind of trauma that would break any child into softness, into reflection, into apology.And for a few days, it almost seemed that way.She clung to me with a quiet desperation that reminded me of the little girl she must have been before the world taught her to perform hardness.But trauma isn’t linear. Healing even less so.And whatever had been festering inside Bonnie, resentments, loyalties, fears she didn’t have the language for, had not vanished with warmth, or soup, or my mother’s gentle hands.It simmered.It grew teeth.And it waited.I tried. God, I tried. Even with the chaos at Rosemary swallowing my days, the press outside the doors, the reporters hungry for scandal, Vanessa’s fingerprints showing up in every dark corner, I carved space for Bonnie.I left early, came home early, paused calls, postponed meetings. Claire stayed with us, helping Molly wit
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