Lily Thompson
The second she stood up to walk up to me, my legs moved even before my mind could catch up
I grabbed Theo and started moving.
I didn’t stop to think. I didn’t give myself a second to process. I just turned and walked fast, too fast to look normal but not fast enough to count as running.
My chest squeezed, my throat closed. The courtyard blurred, students’ faces smearing into streaks of color. My palms turned slick with sweat.
She was here. My mother.
The woman who disowned me. The woman whose voice had haunted me every single night, whose silence afterward cut deeper than any blade. She was here, standing in the courtyard of my college like the past hadn’t already crushed me once.
“Lily!”
Her voice cracked. The sound of it clawed at me. I knew that voice. I had onc
