Page 173 of Falling Offsides

“No,” I repeat, firmer now. “I’m not signing anything. I want to keep my half of the property.”

She goes quiet.

Then, sharp and bitter, she sobs, “Honestly, Courtney… you’re being selfish. That house doesn’t mean anything to you anymore, and you know it. But you’d rather be difficult and create problems than let it go. What have I done to deserve this? For you to treat me so… so…”

My breath catches at her high-pitched cry. The thing is, I’ve had a front row seat to manipulation, and while I hate confrontation, I’m not a pushover. I’m not stupid. I know what she’s doing, and that’s what cracks the damn of my silence.

“Why didn’t you tell me Dad called you every week for the last twelve years?” I ask, voice shaking. “Why pretend like he was always too busy to care?”

“I—”

“You’veliedto me. For years. All this time.”

She scoffs. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“Don’t gaslight me,” I snap. “You made me believe I was hisafterthought when all this time, he was trying to be there. He called every week.Every week, Mom.”

The silence that follows is suffocating. Whoever said that it’s better out than in is a goddamn moron. Because voicing all of this has made it all hit deeper and worse. She’s my mom… my mother. She’s meant to love me, protect me, nurture me.

Every emotion cuts through my mind, and all I can think about is dinner with Auguste’s family, the afternoon on the boat… how earnestly they care for each other. How tenderly they celebrate each other. Maybe they’re an anomaly, an exception… but I can’t unsee it. Pretend I didn’t experience it.

“You had no right,” I whisper. “You let me sit in that heartbreak. You let me think I was unwanted… a burden. That he leftmewhen he let you go.”

“I was trying to protect you,” she hisses. The sweetness is gone now. Stripped bare. “You don’t understand what he putmethrough. What that life putmethrough.”

“This isn’t about you.”

“Yes, itis! Everything I do is for you and all I get in return is judgment. I am your mother. And mothers and daughters are supposed to help each other. Stick together.”

Stick together.

“Stick together?” I breathe, stunned. “You didn’t even let me stick with my own dad. You ripped me away from him. And now you want to guilt me into giving up the last good memories I have of us? Grow up, Catherine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Grow. Up. Mother.” Those words shouldn’t be too hard for her to understand.

Another sob and then—click—nothing. Silence.

She hangs up on me. Again.

Just like that. Like always.

I stare at the phone in my hand, the call history blinking back at me. The air buzzes faintly with background noise—voices, footsteps, laughter.

But all I hear is the echo of her silence. There’s a finality to it that sits wrong. A weight that threatens to crush me.

And yet, even though my heart hurts and my eyes sting, I’m proud of myself for not backing down. For realizing that maybe all this time, she’s gotten from Martin what she’s given me. And maybe it is a learnedbehavior. Maybe it’s the fallout from his bullying. But I'm not her, and I won’t let her treat me like it anymore.

It took allof a few minutes after walking into the apartment for me to realize I didn’t want to be there on my own. To feel Auguste’s absence like a vice around my chest. It felt lonely and empty like the first time I walked inside.

That’s not what I need right now.

Instead of wallowing I change into my swimsuit, grab my kindle, and head up to the rooftop pool.

The elevator doors open into the indoor, greenhouse type garden. The babble of the water fountain in the middle is a welcome distraction from the silence in my head. I sit on the stone edge for a while, reading, listening to the trill of the water and breathing in the sweet scent of the flowers. Until I grow too used to the peace and I’m reading the same words again and again.

I move to the pool, swimming as many lengths as I can, exhausting myself to the point that I’m doggy paddling, breathless. My brain is focused on one thing and one thing only—not drowning—as I starfish on the surface of the water and watch the sky marl in dusty shades of lavender and gold. Darkening like a bruise, achy and throbbing.