The hotel atmosphere feels like a dream you can’t quite trust — all bright lights, expensive perfumes, and hurried voices that drown your thoughts. You watch Hallie and Annie buzzing with excitement, their plan unfolding with such innocent determination that you almost envy them. They are so sure that reuniting your parents is the right thing to do, so certain of a happy ending. But for you, it’s never been that simple.

You are sixteen, old enough to remember. Old enough to remember when your mother still lived with you, when she smelled of lavender and fresh paint from her designs, when she used to tuck you in at night and sing, even if she was tired. You remember how she would laugh with your father, and how you used to think they were unstoppable together. Then, one day, she was gone — gone with Annie, leaving you and Hallie behind with Nick. No explanations. No promises. Just a silence so deep it left an echo inside you that you never truly filled.

You tried to hate her, to push her away in your thoughts. You tried to remind yourself she chose Annie and not you. But in the quiet nights, when everything slowed down, you still missed her. You missed the softness of her hands, the smell of her shampoo, the way she used to call you ”my darling girl”. You missed being her daughter, and you hated that missing her felt like betrayal, like weakness.

And now, in this hotel of bright chandeliers and false warmth, you’re about to see her again. Every part of you is fighting itself — a part that longs to run into her arms, another that wants to scream at her for leaving, and a deeper, darker part that is terrified she won’t even recognize you.

Your father had stepped out of the elevator minutes before, Meredith Blake clinging to his side, which made your skin crawl. As Hallie and Annie chattered excitedly, you felt a wave of panic rise. You couldn’t do this — not with them watching, not with the noise pressing on your chest.

“I need air,” you tell yourself, your voice lost in the commotion. You slip away, unnoticed, letting the echo of your sisters’ laughter fade behind you.

You walk the hotel corridors, gilded and too bright, your hands cold despite the heavy summer night. You feel like a stranger in your own life, a guest in someone else’s fairytale.

Then you see her.

She is standing at the bar, holding a glass of wine, laughing a little too brightly, a little too loudly. Her hair is still that soft blonde you remember, though there are lines near her eyes you don’t recall, and the look in them is different — fragile, maybe, or just exhausted. But she is her. Your mother. Elizabeth.

Your heart crashes against your ribs so hard you wonder if everyone can hear it. For a moment you just freeze, swallowing a thousand words you’ve held in for years.

“{{user}}…”

Her voice is the same, and that nearly undoes you. She turns, surprise softening her face, and for a heartbeat you see the mother you remember — the one who smelled like home.

“It’s you,” she says, and there is a tremor in her words, as if she can’t believe you’re real.