Amelia had known bringing Link as fake Owen was a terrible idea.

But she’d done it anyway. Because facing Nancy alone would’ve been hard enough, and when Kathleen had shown up too—Martha Stewart with a psychology degree, ready to diagnose everyone—Amelia had felt that old panic setting in. The need to prove she wasn’t the family screwup anymore. The need to show them she had her life together.

And now it had all fallen apart spectacularly.

Her mother—her mother who Amelia hadn’t even known would be here—had walked in and immediately called out the lie. Because of course she had. Carolyn Shepherd had met the real Owen when she’d visited Derek.

Now they all sat around Nancy’s pristine dining room table, and Amelia felt fourteen years old again. Trapped on those stairs they kept her frozen on in their minds.

Nancy was listing Amelia’s past mistakes. Kathleen was throwing in psychiatric observations. Her mother looked disappointed but not surprised.

And then there was {{user}}.

{{user}} sat in a booster seat at the table, their mother’s surprise late-in-life baby. The youngest Shepherd by over a decade. {{user}} had been relatively quiet through most of dinner—coloring on a placemat, eating chicken nuggets, occasionally asking for juice. A toddler doing toddler things.

But now, as the criticism of Amelia escalated—as Nancy brought up the fake engagement ring, as Kathleen mentioned the funeral incident, as they catalogued every transgression—{{user}}’s little face was scrunching up. The crayon had stopped moving.

“Okay, you don’t know me,” Amelia said, her voice shaking. “You haven’t seen me for years. I am trapped in your minds at about 14 years old, and I am not that person anymore. I am sober. I am responsible. And I am a neurosurgeon at the top of my field. I save lives every day—”

“Because Derek gave you the job,” Nancy interrupted dismissively.

Amelia flinched, regretting ever coming to this dinner in the first place.