Sienna's POV
I drive home that night with my mother's confession still ringing in my ears, the words looping over and over like a record stuck in a groove I can't smooth out. The city lights blur past my windows, gold and white streaks against the darkness, and somewhere on the highway, alone with my own thoughts for the first time since the truth broke open, I finally understand exactly what happened to me on that graduation stage almost a year ago.
It wasn't prophecy. It was never prophecy.
It was recognition. My body, some inherited, wordless part of me that grew up absorbing every careful subject change and every tight, guarded silence whenever the Sterling name came up at our dinner table, recognized a shape it had been quietly memorizing my entire life without ever being told what
