---

---

The group chat had been a staging device.

"Darling" — that was me.

Every hurtful line had been scripted.

Mia was an actress, not a rival.

I was the only one who hadn't known.

Jamie pressed my phone back into my hand. "I knew from the beginning. But I couldn't tell you. I tried to give you a signal. I was terrified you'd break down before it was over."

I thought back to the screenshot he'd sent.

Dad, have you sorted the birthday surprise for Sis? You promised this was the last time you'd ever deceive her.

I'd only read the word "deceive." I'd missed "birthday surprise" and "last time."

He'd been trying to tell me. In the only way he could.

I looked at his bloodshot eyes.

"So you were an actor too?" I asked.

He dropped his head. "I'm sorry, Sis. Every time I saw you hurting, I wanted to tell you. But Dad said it was the only way to get the door open."

The door. My heart.

"Open it using what?" I said. "Deception? Pain?"

All three of them went pale.

Dad stepped forward. "That's on me, Sophie. I underestimated how much the journey would hurt. I was thinking about the destination. I wasn't thinking about you."

"I just—" he stopped. "I wanted to give it back to you. All of it."

Mum was crying too hard to speak in sentences. "We know we can't fix it with one night. We know that. But we didn't know how else to show you—"

She forced herself to keep going.

"Every time we tried, you said no. Every dinner, every trip, every call. We stopped trying because we didn't know what else to do. And then we'd see you pulling further away and we'd think — what did we do? What are we doing wrong?"

She pressed her hand to her mouth.

"We're so sorry we weren't there. We're so sorry we made you feel like you didn't count."

Was that how it had been?

I tried to remember. There had been gestures. Small ones, badly timed. Dinners I'd declined. Calls I hadn't returned.

Because by then, I didn't trust any of it to mean what it looked like.

I'd built a wall to protect myself. And I'd built it so well that even the genuine things couldn't get through.

Around us, I realised the room had emptied. The guests had drifted out at some point. It was just us, and Mia and her mother, standing in the wreckage of all those pink decorations.

I breathed in.

"The party was impressive," I said.

I watched their faces.

"I didn't like it."