Page 102 of For the Plot

My old bedroom looks exactly the same as the day I left for college. Pink comforter. Fairy lights around the window. Bulletin board covered in concert tickets and pictures of old friends. On the dresser sits a dusty glass perfume bottle and a cracked snow globe from our trip to Nashville in high school. It’s a time capsule of someone who had no idea what was coming.

I sit on the edge of the bed and run my hand over the comforter, the satin slightly worn from years of sleep and secrets. I lie down, curling on my side. This room used to feel like a sanctuary. Now it just feels small.

I close my eyes and try to remember who I was before Reece Blackwood took up permanent residence in my chest. And I can’t. I’m not her anymore. But I don’t know who I am now, either.

The next morning,I find Mom in the kitchen, humming along to some old Motown song as she whisks eggs in a chipped blue bowl. Sunlight filters in through the curtains, dust swirling in the beams like tiny ghosts. It smells like toast and coffee and lemon dish soap. Like everything safe and ordinary.

I want to stay in this moment. But it’s gnawing at me. The truth. The confession. I take a breath. “Mom?”

She glances at me. “Yeah, baby?”

“I need to tell you something. And you can’t freak out.”

That gets her full attention. She sets the whisk down and wipes her hands on a dish towel, leaning one hip against the counter.

“Alright,” she says cautiously. “Tell me.”

I grip the back of one of the kitchen chairs, knuckles whitening.

“I was seeing someone.”

A pause. Then a slow nod. “I thought we already established that.”

“It was serious. At least—it was for me.”

“Did he hurt you?”

I blink. “What?”

“Whoever he is. The way you showed up here, Skye… You looked wrecked.”

I laugh once, sharp and bitter. “Yeah. He hurt me.”

She softens, stepping forward. “Oh, honey?—”

“There’s more,” I cut in, heart thudding. “It’s not just that.”

She waits. And I say it fast, like ripping off a Band-Aid. “It was Reece Blackwood.”

For a second, she doesn’t react. Then her brows draw together. “Archer’s dad?”

I nod. The silence stretches like a held breath.

“You were dating Archer’s father?”

“I wasn’t datinganyoneat first,” I say quickly. “I was temping for him. At his company. And then it just… evolved. Slowly. I didn’t mean for it to happen. Neither of us did.”

She just stares at me, processing.

I go on, filling the space like I always do when I’m spiraling. “We tried to stay professional. We really did. But the tension, Mom, it was unbearable. We fought it for weeks. And when it finally happened… it felt like everything in my life suddenly made sense.”

“Skye…”

“It wasn’t just sex,” I say quietly. “It was more. He saw me. He listened. He made me feel like I wasn’t too much or not enough—I was just… me. And that wasokaywith him.”

She exhales slowly and pulls out a chair. “Come sit.”

I sink onto the chair. She folds her hands on the table. “You’ve always been drawn to older men.” I flinch. “I don’t mean that as judgment,” she adds gently. “Just as truth. Let’s not pretend all of your celebrity crushes weren’t men old enough to be your father.”