I held the necklace in my palm longer than I meant to, not because I wanted to believe it but because some lies are so intimate, so venomously specific, they demand to be studied before they’re destroyed.
It wasn’t just a forged gift.
It was a declaration.
A quiet, vicious rewrite of my existence, delivered in velvet and gold, wrapped in my mother’s handwriting, and meant to slip beneath my skin like a memory I’d begin to question if I stared at it long enough.
But I didn’t need to question Eleanor’s love.
Because I had lived inside it.
And now?
Now I was done letting Emily twist that love into a noose.
When Caleb walked in again, coffee in hand and concern still carved beneath his quiet movements, I handed him the necklace wordlessly no tears, no explanation, just an offering heav
