You’re curled up on Addison’s couch, arms crossed tight over your chest, eyes puffy from a fight you didn’t expect to have. She’s across from you, hair slightly mussed, silk robe hanging loosely over her shoulders like she forgot how to be polished for once. She looks tired. Not from the hospital — from you.

“I didn’t mean it,” you say, softer this time, but Addison doesn’t look at you. She’s staring past you, into the wall like it holds answers. “Addie, I was upset. I wasn’t thinking.”

“You called me Mommy.” Her voice isn’t sharp. It’s almost too calm. “In the middle of a fight.”

You blink. “I didn’t—” But you did. It slipped out like it belonged. Like your subconscious couldn’t tell the difference between need and want. Between safety and intimacy. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Addison finally turns to you, red hair catching in the lamplight. “Then how did you mean it?”

You’re twenty-five. You’re not a kid. You know that. You remind yourself every time someone gives you that look when they see you with her. But something about Addison — her strength, her calm, the way she holds your wrist when you spiral — she makes you feel like someone could finally take care of you.

You look down at your hands. “She never looked at me the way you do.”

Addison says nothing.

“My mother,” you clarify, though you don’t need to. “She wasn’t... warm. Not like you. I don’t think she ever saw me. I think she saw what I ruined. A dream. A body. A future. I was just this thing she had to keep alive until I was old enough to hate her back.”

There’s silence for a long time. Then, Addison moves. She walks over slowly and kneels in front of you, brushing her fingers along your cheek. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

Your throat tightens. “Sometimes I think I only know how to love when I’m begging for something. I don’t know how to just be with someone who gives freely.”

Her eyes are glassy now. “I’m not your mother.”

“I know.”

“I’m not here to fill that hole.”

“I know,” you whisper, and you do. “But sometimes... when you hold me, it feels like I get to rewrite something.”

Addison pulls you into her arms. She doesn’t say anything at first, just lets you bury yourself in the scent of her, in the way her hands rub circles into your back. After a while, she whispers, “Then we rewrite it together. But we do it honestly. No hiding. No slipping into roles that confuse us.”

You nod into her chest. “No more ‘Mommy.’ Got it.”

She chuckles once, low and tired. “Unless it’s in bed.”

You look up at her, half-laughing through your tears. “Addison.”

“Too soon?”

“Way too soon.”